The Orange Fire Shadow
by Orange Kage
Summary: Naruto's seal was designed to be incomplete but then Orochimaru sealed off the Kyuubi's chakra permanently. Armed with the memory of his parents' death, natural reserves that surpass average and near perfect control of his chakra; he wants to take on the Kyuubi and the masked Uchiha who killed his parents.
1. Chapter 1 Sealed

**Disclamer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters but if I did…well we'll cross that bridge when we cross it.**

**A/N: I'm die hard Naruto fan but every now and then I like seeing what things would have been like.**

SEALED

Orochimaru nearly scowled as Minato's demon powered son stopped his snake summon, he didn't because he was fairly sure that the young Uchiha would have lost the will to fight and that would have ruined his fun too soon.

_Well aren't you an interesting one, _he thought as blonde's taunt relit the fire in Sasuke's eyes.

He stretched his tongue out and picked up the blond, the chakra tasted disgusting on his tongue. He exposed the seal and understood it at first glance, it wasn't particularly complicated.

_Now why would you want your son to have access to the Kyuubi's chakra, Minato? No matter, I can seal this properly and move onto Sasuke-kun._

Naruto cried out painfully as the chakra enhanced fingers slammed into him and then darkness took him.

**NO! **The Kyuubi growled as he watched the sewer grow dimmer by the second. He could feel his access to the boy fading; soon he would become an ordinary prisoner. He was being locked away. **FOOLISH HUMANS, YOU MAY SUPPRESS MY POWER FOR NOW BUT SOON I WILL BATHE IN YOUR BLOOD. YOU AND THIS WEAK VESSEL OF MINE WILL KNOW TRUE TORTURE, UCHIHA MADARA. **

Before the light disappeared completely, the demon known as Kurama released a memory. A memory that started the moment he escaped from that loud-mouthed red headed Uzumaki. Yes, he was going to show his vessel how his parents died. He was going to show the boy how he killed them.

Kyuubi laughed but it sounded like a rumble in tune with an erratic heartbeat. It was frightening. The nine tailed fox continued his rumbling laugh and imagined how the blond idiot would react to his memories of the hundreds he slaughtered that night but then a thought crossed his mind as his cage was completely shut off from his vessel.

**YOU BETTER NOT ALLOW SHUKAKU TO KILL YOU, BRAT!**

For Naruto, first there was darkness then things started opening up. There was a small hole then things started clearing up, his senses were not ready for the onslaught.

"Stay in there fox!" someone said over other more oppressing sounds. It sounded like a woman screaming.

"I'm not the fox," Naruto pleaded "I'm just the container!"

After some moments Naruto realized he could not be heard, this was a memory and he could do nothing. There was more noise and maybe an explosion. The small light was too small to allow him to see anything yet. But he didn't need to see anything, from the moment he escaped; he knew he had been lied to.

"I am the Kyuubi, Mizuki was right. I am the Nine Tails in human form."

A masked man appeared and his eye was enough to subdue the great beast. Naruto was glad that someone had been able to stop it then he remembered that he was the fox and sadness took him again

Naruto was horrified as the Konoha ninjas attacked him with techniques that would have been powerful against his human form but was less than impressive against his fox form. His claws swiped and entire buildings were reduced to rubbles, children were crushed and women were smashed against walls. The men were unluckiest; he sought them out and tore them apart actively. It was disgusting.

The trauma was overwhelming and he barely noticed the Sandaime push him back with a giant staff. That raised his hopes but then he remembered how this story ended, there was nothing to be hopeful for, in the next few moments he would be defeated by the Yondaime and turned into a baby. However, when the Yondaime appeared he was holding a baby and a red haired woman, hope was returned and he cheered uncharacteristically.

He had a mother who loved, he wasn't the Kyuubi. He would be raised by her and never have to look through dustbin for food or be beaten and glared at by the villagers, he would be happy.

"I'm going to seal him in our son" said the Yondaime and Naruto realized two things at that moment; the first was that both his parents loved him and the second was that somewhere in this memory, they would die.

His mother, Kushina, pleaded with his father not to seal the Kyuubi in him. It was all in vain and when both his parents saved him from being killed, Naruto hated the Kyuubi more than he had through this whole memory.

"Naruto," began his mother. "Eat a lot of vegetables and have balanced diet, stay away from strangers and alcohol until you're old enough. And as for girls, find someone who will love you and take care of them. Make us a lot of grandchildren." The Yondaime coughed a laugh, "I'm sorry Minato, I took up all your time."

"It's alright," laughed Minato "Listen to you motor mouth mother, Naruto. And become strong for both of us."

Then the memory faded and an ominous voice boomed from nowhere at all.

**YOU BETTER NOT ALLOW SHUKAKU TO KILL YOU BRAT!**

Naruto sorted through all the memories…his parents had loved him and they had risked their lives for his. The masked man was responsible for his parents' death. So was the Kyuubi.

_And become strong for both of us. _Those were his father's parting words.

*flashback*

_He had been practicing the whole night and his arms were incredibly sore._

"_Alright, guys" said Iruka-sensei. "Today we'll be assessing your shuriken and kunai throwing accuracies"_

_Naruto couldn't help but groan, he had mastered this but he was in no condition to repeat the skill now. When his turn came, he missed the target completely and one between the legs of the now fallen Iruka-sensei._

_The entire class broke into a laugh._

"_Can't you do anything right, dead last" _

"_Yeah, you're so pathetic"_

"_This guy is the one who's supposed to be hokage?"_

_Naruto pushed his hurt down and broke into his trademark grin, "Sorry about that, sensei"_

_*end flashback*_

There were many more memories like that, he had trained dammit! Once he had spent an entire night conditioning his body by punching and kicking a post and the very next day they had taijutsu bouts and he lost his because he could not block or attack without getting hurt. Naruto opened his eyes and wiped away the tears.

He could hear the sounds of a fight outside the cave he was in, he also felt more in control of his body and his chakra wasn't fluctuating anymore. He was in perfect control.

_Don't worry, Kyuubi, I won't die yet. I'll get stronger and kill the masked man and when I'm done with him. You're next!_

Naruto walked out of the cave and took in the scene in front of him, Lee was on the ground and so were two Sound nin. Sakura had a horrified look on her face and Naruto followed her gaze to where Sasuke had a Sound ninja on his knees.

"What's going on here" Naruto said more calmly then he would have liked, he noticed the tattoos and purple chakra around Sasuke's body. "Teme, what the hell did you do to your face?"

"I became powerful." He said in a matter of fact way and began to pull on the Sound ninja's arms.

Naruto heard the cracking of bones and was immediately in motion and before Sasuke knew it, a chakra enhanced fist to the jaw sent him to the ground and effectively knocked him out.

"Naruto-baka," said Sakura as she ran to her crush. "How dare you hit Sasuke-kun?"

Naruto clenched his jaw. How was it possible that he thought this girl was attractive. He ignored her and turned to the panting Sound ninja.

"You should go now" Naruto said as he found his old joyful voice. He chuckled a bit as the genin looked at him gratefully. "No need to thank me, we're taking your heaven and earth scrolls"

The Oto genin used his working arm to pull out the scrolls and dropped them at Naruto's feet.

"Thank you." He said as he woke up the groggy girl and picked up his other teammate. They walked into the darkness and the forced smile on Naruto's face became real.

"Sakura?" Naruto said a few minutes later. She looked up at him with a face of utter shock.

"Wh—what did you call me?"

"Sakura" repeated Naruto, "That was your name last time I checked. What happened to that grass ninja and Bushy Brows over here?"

When Lee was woken up, Sakura had just finished her story. He mentioned something about flames of youth and then took off.

"You should sleep," Naruto told Sakura, they had both agreed that tomorrow morning they would set off for the tower.

"Idiot," she said once more. And Naruto's clenched his jaw again. "Who's going to protect my dear Sasuke-kun from the other genin if I'm asleep? I could never leave his safety to an idiot like you."

"Sakura..." Naruto began in that calm voice that crept up on him earlier, "Do you really think you're stronger than me?"

Sakura was taken back, she had expected him to apologize and do what she said like usual but the question he asked her scared her. She had gone into team 7 knowing that she and Sasuke were the best and Naruto was the dead last, but now that she thought about it.

"O—of course, y—you were dead last, you id—" She could not help but stop as she saw Naruto's eyes for the first time since he'd woken up. They did not hold the sparkle of happiness like before, instead they were cold and angry. She had never been afraid of the blond but those eyes frightened her, she had gotten used to the adoration he'd always showered her with those eyes.

Sakura did the smart thing when she lied down and closed her eyes because Naruto had been sure that if she'd opened her mouth and said that word again, he would have done a little more than just clench his jaw.

Naruto left a shadow clone behind and went to vent all the anger he'd built up.

_Three chakra signatures up ahead. Whoa, that's so cool I can feel their chakra. Alright then, it's hunting season._

Naruto found the three grass ninjas huddled around a fire. There were two girls and boy. The boy easily had the largest chakra reserves and he had brown hair that constantly moved when his green eyes looked around. The girl seated next to him had the same features and was clearly his younger sister; she seemed content with staring into the fire and rubbing her hands together. The last girl had brown eyes and black hair. She was the first to notice him and tensed up instantly.

Naruto stepped into the light just as she threw a kunai where his head had been. The other two jumped to their feet each with a kunai in hand.

"Hey," Naruto said casually with his goofiest grin.

"What do you want?" said the brown eyed girl. Her shoulders signaled the start of hand seals and Naruto moved in.

The other two tossed kunai and he dodged to the side awkwardly just as the brown eyed girl finished her seals and shot a jet of water at him. It slammed him in the chest and the girl didn't let up until he slammed into the trunk of a tree. The boy was descending from above with a kunai ready to impale but Naruto had sensed his every move and sidestepped the kunai and kicked the ninja in the head when he landed. Naruto watched the water jutsu user dash towards him and felt the boy's sister to his left.

_I should have gotten a sensory ability years ago_.

Naruto ducked under another kunai and charged the girl in front of him, she lashed out a kick and he slapped it away with his arm and used her lack of balance to drive his knee into her stomach with some chakra enhancement. Before she fell, Naruto was already dashing at the shocked sister who fumbled for something in her pouch, before she raised whatever it was. He had her keeled over with a kick and a quick chop to the neck knocked her out.

Naruto glanced at her hand and noticed the heaven scroll in her hand. She was going to surrender. He pushed down the guilt.

"Mina!" shouted the brother, who had regained his bearings. "You'll pay for what you did!"

Naruto glanced at the other girl to make sure she wouldn't interfere then slowly walked away from Mina and faced her enraged brother.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto" he jubilantly said.

"I don't care!" spat the genin. And began hand seals.

Naruto was not going to make that mistake again and fired off shuriken which were deflected by a kunai which was thrown at the already dodging blond. The grass ninja closed the distance and fired off a barrage of punches and had Naruto dodging and blocking. Then the other ninja fired off a kick and Naruto coated his leg with chakra and matched the boy's own. The boys jumped apart and charged once more, this time Naruto abused his large chakra reserves and his new found control to increase the strength of his attacks. Even when the grass nin blocked he got hurt and soon he was panting on the ground after getting knocked down for the fifth time.

Naruto then picked up each sibling and laid them by the fire, the last girl was still on the ground and recovering, he helped her to the fire as well.

"Why…did…you…" asked the girl.

"The boss wanted to see how well his chakra enhanced clones held up against other ninjas" said the clone, right before he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

The girl, Asa Mizushima, looked at her battered and beaten teammates and swallowed, if a clone could do all that then what about the original. Whoever they were going to get their second scroll from was not going to be a Konoha ninja, those bastards were crazy.

Naruto paused for a moment as the third and last **Uzumaki Kage Bunshin's** memory flooded his mind, he'd increased the durability of his regular **Kage Bunshin **by coating their bodies with concentrated chakra but the only problem was each clone cost him a quarter of his reserves. Three was his limit at the moment.

Naruto ducked another **Kage Bunshin's** kunai swipe and went back to dispatching the army he'd created four hours ago. His stamina had becoming frighteningly unbeatable and there was also the fact that he couldn't get the image of his parents out of his head, so he fought until they were all gone.

Naruto walked back into the cave and ignored Sakura as he exhaustedly snuggled the ground and slept. Soon he would be in the tower and then he would confront the Hokage about his parents. Gone was his dream to become Hokage, he had goal now. He needed to kill the Uchiha with the mask and then destroy a demon, becoming a chuunin or Hokage was not a priority. He needed to become stronger; he needed to be the strongest.


	2. Chapter 2 Splendid Shinobi is Made

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters but if I did…well we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.**

**A/N: Near perfect chakra control might have been an overstatement on my part, let's just say Naruto feels as though it's better because of the lack of influence from the Kyuubi. (Like how Lee feels the fastest after taking off his weights, he may be faster, but there is still room for improvement.)Speaking of the Kyuubi, he's not gone, obviously Jiraiya can reverse any amateur seal. And as for Naruto's taijutsu, it's definitely lacking; even the anime shows nothing spectacular about his skills. That's what I wanna change the most. Genjutsu is definitely within his reach, but that's not an issue yet. **

**ENJOY!**

A SPLENDID NINJA IS MADE NOT BORN

Naruto suppressed a groan as he rolled onto his back and fought the pain. The bruises on his body were fairly superficial, but it was the headache of one hundred and three different memories that hurt the most. He had decided last night that he needed to get stronger and somewhere in his subconscious he had come up with the idea to use clones to increase his battle experience. It was an inspired idea if he said so himself.

However, clones were relatively easy to dispatch and that's why he'd come up with his chakra enhanced clones, it had taken him only twenty minutes to get it right. He would have been surprised, but then he remembered who his father was. The Yondaime was hailed as a genius and by extension; he too was destined to be a genius. No, not destined, that was stupid! His father had given him a goal and that was it, it did not matter who his father was. Riding on the coat tails of family was something that bastard Sasuke did, not Uzumaki Naruto.

_I'm my own ninja. _He thought defiantly.

Naruto sat up and looked at his teammates. He did not want to be on this team anymore, he did not want to be weak anymore. For as long as he was the idiot of the group, no one would want to teach him useful skills. Tree walking was a neat trick, but he couldn't help resent his sensei for not helping him improve his skills at all in all this time.

Sasuke glared at him intensely.

"Morning!" smiled Naruto. "What's up?"

Sasuke glared some more, the Uchiha knew he'd been distracted when Naruto had hit him, but couldn't fathom how a single punch from the dead last had knocked him out.

Sakura stared between the two, there was her charming Sasuke-kun, he looked as handsome as ever, then there was that idiot Naruto, he looked even more stupid with that grin on his face, but then she looked closely and realized she'd seen that smile many times before, the smile that never reached his eyes.

"Morning," she said. "Sasuke-kun came up with the great idea of going to the tower this morning."

Naruto chuckled slightly, he was used to this. "Sakura, don't you remember me saying the same thing last night, after _I_ got us the scroll."

Sakura was too shocked that he hadn't called her "chan" to respond. Meanwhile, Sasuke seemed to have come to a decision and scoffed.

"As if a dobe like you could have done that."

"Hey!" shouted Naruto, hating the fact that he could only fake the hurt in his voice. For some reason his mind felt like it was normal for people to undermine him.

"Yeah!" recovered Sakura. "There's no ways a dead last like you could do something Sasuke couldn't."

Now that hurt, hadn't she been there when he'd asked for the scroll and when he'd handed it to her for safe keeping after 'praising' him for being 'smart' enough to think of it. Would his ninja academy scores forever plague him? The only reason he dared to maintain the goofy façade was because people found him funny, because of it; but now he realized that they had not been laughing with him, but rather, at him.

"You're probably right." Naruto laughed while rubbing the back of his neck. "We should probably get to the tower huh?"

_Underestimate me all you want. _He thought darkly. _I don't need your approval, I'll know when I'm strong enough, because that's when being dead last will be a compliment!_

Sakura bit her lip as what she had done finally sank in; jumping to Sasuke's defence was a default for her. She had gotten so used to it that she sometimes did it without even thinking. Then she remembered why she had alienated her best friend and shunned all boys that dared to think they could ask her out, it was because Sasuke was her knight in shining armour.

_But the jerk never says thanks for all the trouble we go through for him. _Wondered Inner Sakura. _And if he's such a hero then why does he need us to defend him all day?_

And the sad truth was, she wasn't needed. Sasuke barely paid her any mind. Even Naruto had stopped calling her "Sakura-chan". She had hated the kid for calling her that, but now, after a couple mentions of her name she was starting to miss it.

Naruto wasn't surprised that they encountered no problems on their way to the tower, because the **Uzumaki Kage Bunshin **had cleared a straight path for them. It was unusual that ninja seemed to think they were safest at night with a giant flaming beacon. His stealth from evading ANBU had come in handy.

**The tower, on the last day**

Naruto stared at the rows of genin and hoped his reflexes from the collective memories of his clones would be enough. He believed he'd become stronger, but beating up clones of yourself and knocking out a few unsuspecting genin while they felt safe was no reason to pat himself on the back.

All in all, eight teams had made it. The rookies were all here and Naruto held back a yawn as he saw the Grass team he 'tested' his clones against. Kabuto and his older friends were here as well. The Sound team seemed to be battered and he noticed one of them was barely standing, surprising enough; it wasn't the one with his arm in a sling. Gaara's team was here as well and he had to remind himself of the blood oath he'd made on the mission to the Wave.

_I'll never run away. I won't go back on my word, believe it!_

Gaara was strong, but he would not back down just, because he felt scared. Speaking of fear, he held back a gasp as he noticed the monstrous eye brows of Lee. Naruto had nothing but respect for the fellow Leaf Nin; he'd noticed how the older boy had never once underestimated him. Lee had intentionally given them the impression that he was anything, but exceptional. Not to mention how he'd dispatched Sasuke and his Sharingan.

"Congratulations!" said the Hokage from the upper tier, they looked up at him attentively while he droned on about how the exams were a replacement for war and how they were obligated to make their village proud.

_Even if your village hates you?_

When the Hokage was done, one of the jounin standing to his side walked down the stairs to meet them and after a frightening pause dedicated to what must have been a painful coughing fit, he asked if everyone was fighting fit, because there would be a preliminary bout to cut their numbers in half.

"Sasuke-kun, you should quit and get that thing checked out." Whispered Sakura worriedly.

Sasuke grunted and for a while Naruto assumed that was his reply, "I'm an Uchiha," he said confidently. "Uchiha don't quit, besides even with this handicap no one can match the might of a true Uchiha."

Sakura seemed content with the reasoning, because she nodded happily.

_Wow! _Naruto was dumbfounded. _If I had known about my dad from the beginning, I'd probably be even more of an arrogant bastard than Sasuke._

Naruto suppressed a shudder as he pictured himself brooding and replying "Hn." to everything people said. He thought his father was the greatest ninja in history and many people agreed, but he didn't want to be like the legend. Even when he was oblivious about his parents, the one thing he had been sure of was that the Yondaime would be surpassed by him.

"Well, I'm out." said Kabuto.

"What!" shouted Naruto. "C'mon, you can't give up when you're this close to finishing, this could be your year."

"Sorry Naruto, I've been fighting off an injury for too long."

Kabuto left and soon after, a sound ninja identified as Dosu followed. And when the jounin, Gekko Hayate, was sure that no one else wanted to leave, he decided to cough a bit more and then began by gesturing to a screen. It flickered through a few names for ten seconds then stopped.

_UCHIHA SASUKE VS AKADO YOROI_

The rest of the participants left for the balcony and met their sensei, Naruto yawned and crossed his arms over the railing. He still hadn't gotten a full night's sleep since the forest.

"Ready?" asked Hayate as he turned his head from each contestant. "Begin!"

Yoroi wasted no time and dashed at Sasuke with a glowing hand, it was a few moments of Sasuke's screams before they separated. After that Naruto wished he was still asleep rather than watching Sasuke dodge excessively. Then there was an inspired moment that made Naruto seethe with jealousy. He could only imagine how Lee felt watching his own technique be used so expertly by someone who'd only seen it once.

_Damn it! Maybe he does have a reason to brag about being an Uchiha. _Naruto couldn't help but realize that he was greatly outmatched by nearly everyone in attendance here. He had decided that becoming chuunin came second to getting stronger, but when he saw Sasuke complete his "Lion's Barrage" he understood that losing here would be a weakness in itself.

_HAJI MINA VS TEMARI_

Green eyes met blue and Naruto felt a pang of guilt as he saw the fear in the girl, Mina. He gave her an apologetic smile as she faced her opponent.

Temari opened her fan slightly and smiled at the timid looking girl. Mina pulled out a kunai.

"Ready? Begin!"

Mina surged forward instantly with her kunai ready, but the other girl merely swung her fan. A small horizontal whirlwind sent the Grass nin back the way she came and into the wall. The girl was instantly knocked out the moment her head hit the wall, she did not feel the pain when her face hit the ground with a dull thud. Temari smirked at her fallen opponent and walked back to her team when she was declared the winner.

Naruto sighed as Mina's sensei followed his student to the infirmary. All the other genin were in awe at the powerful kunoichi's efficiency. Temari clearly had not even tried that hard.

_ABURAME SHINO VS ABUMI ZAKU_

Shino's ultimatum to the Sound nin peeked Naruto's interest. "If you turn your arm on me, then my chakra eating allies will bleed you dry in seconds, consequently, if you use your arm to keep them at bay then you'll have me on your blindside."

_Why give him a choice in the matter at all. The whole time he was talking, Zaku was looking at him._

When Shino revealed that he'd used his bugs to plug up both of Zaku's sound cannon, even though one belonged to a 'broken' arm, everyone was in awe. None of them would have thought to worry about the broken arm at all, Naruto's worry set in once again as he realized that if that had been him down there then the 'broken' arm would have defeated him.

"Winner, Aburame Shino!" coughed Hayate as the next match was revealed by the green and yellow screen.

_HARUNO SAKURA VS INO_

Naruto smiled, "Good luck Sakura!"

The pink haired kunoichi was nearly halfway down the stairs when she turned around, "I don't need your luck, Naruto."

"Guess not. Oh, then I take it back." Laughed Naruto, he turned to Ino, who was descending by jumping off the balcony, "Good luck Ino!"

Said girl turned her shocked gaze towards the other blond along with the entire Rookie 9, Naruto was beaming happily and Ino was too shocked to voice her thoughts on how wrong it was to wish your teammate's opponent good luck.

Sakura wasn't, "Naruto-baka, don't wish Ino-pig good luck."

"Hey!" declared Ino and surprised everyone with her next statement. "Don't call Naruto an idiot…" She trailed off as the mood set in of how weird it was to defend Naruto, but for some reason the smiling idiot's sincere wishes made her want to. "H-He just knows who the better kunoichi between us."

"Yeah right." Retorted Sakura. "Naruto's just an idiot, he knows nothing."

"You fool!" declared Shikamaru as he realized the two were going to extend this verbal battle even through their actual battle and make this whole ordeal even more troublesome. He really needed to sleep, but said instigator of this event spoke up to his left.

"What did you say to me?"

"I called you a fool, you want to make something of it? 'Cause you'll lose."

Naruto reigned in the urge to attack Shikamaru by clenching his jaw once more and turned back to the kunoichi.

"I'll lose huh?" he said under his breath, "Because I'm the dobe."

_I'll always be the dead last loser to everyone here. A hokage cannot be considered an idiot; my parents did not save me so I'd make myself a laughing stock._

"Ready?" said Hayate in ritual with a coughing pause where he turned and looked at the nodding approval of each genin. "Begin!"

Both kunoichi erupted into the first real evenly matched taijutsu battle of the entire preliminaries. They traded blows and used weapons evenly. They were equal until Ino gained the upper hand which should have ended in a punch but an echoing slap was all everyone heard and saw.

Shikamaru sighed a word of troublesome as the two bantered about which one of them was more suited for their precious 'Sasuke-kun'. Then Ino cut her hair and prepared to use her family jutsu.

"She's only supposed to use that after I hold them down!" exclaimed the Nara.

Expectedly, she missed and slumped to her knees while Sakura began to gloat.

"Well Ino-pig, looks like Naruto's luck went to a was—"

Sakura's victory speech was cut off when Ino's hair glowed and tightened around her feet and held her position. Ino's speech was much shorter and resulted in her activating her family justu and allowing Sakura to watch as she lifted said girl's hand.

"I, Haruno Sakura surrender to Yamanaka Ino's awesome beauty, fashion sense, intellect of unmatched proportionality, battle skills, boy-getting ski—"

'Sakura' and her rant was stopped by the gut busting laugh of Naruto who was bent over and couldn't stop himself. Soon, the other Rookie 9 joined into the affair, Hinata giggled gracefully with a hand over her mouth, Shino merely limited himself to a smile. While the rest let the humor take control.

The seconds passed as the other genin watched the rookies with pure contempt at their lack of professionalism, then Shikamaru broke the spell.

"Troublesome," he said. "Ino, please end the match without complimenting yourself while using Sakura's body. It's just too troublesome."

Hayate coughed for all to hear when order was restored, "Are you sure?"

'Sakura' smiled and nodded.

"Winner," said Hayate as Ino rose from her released jutsu. "Yamanaka Ino!"

The two kunoichi left the stage with Ino in the lead, when she passed Naruto, she smiled but he looked at her with a frown and cringed eyebrows.

"How could you?" he said sounding hurt.

Ino prepared to bare his rant about how his _Sakura-chan _should have won the match, she remembered Naruto stood up for pinky as much as they stood up for Sasuke, but what he said next was nothing like the biased orange-clad goofball she remembered.

"Everyone knows that I'm the one who cuts his hair and uses it as a special chakra rope for trapping my opponents!"

Ino recovered from the shock when Naruto smiled, was Naruto teasing her? She punched him playfully in the shoulder.

"Well too bad." She said sticking her tongue out. "It's my technique now, but I'll burn all your hideous orange jumpsuits for you if it's such a big deal."

_You just wanna see me without any clothes on. _Naruto contemplated replying, but settled for being horrified at her suggestion, "That mind technique must have scrambled your mind if you can use the words 'hideous' and 'orange jumpsuits' in the same sentence."

Ino simply smiled and walked away. "Thanks for the luck, Uzumaki Naruto."

Naruto was about to reply when Sakura's anger seeped into his range, "Hey, Sakura." He said smiling.

"Naruto you idiot." She said. "You're the reason I lost."

"Me? How'd I do that?"

"You…you….you did something."

Naruto turned away and watched the screen start flashing through names, he never noticed Sakura's fist swing at the back of his head but he felt the movement and turned around to watch helplessly as his own hand defied gravity and shot up to knock away the fist. Before he could interrogate his arm, a brown haired and white eyed nin walked passed them with some quiet words that only Kakashi and they could hear.

"Idiots. I do not care if you embarrass yourselves but please do so without pretending to be Leaf ninja."

Naruto was about to retaliate when he noticed that the boy relayed his words of wisdom to team 8 as well while staring at Hinata. Naruto looked at the new names on the screen.

_HYUUGA NEJI VS HAJI KAITO_

The only male Grass ninja made his way passed them with a glare at Naruto, who found the spot between his feet quite interesting when Kakashi and Sakura directed questioning looks. When Hayate announced the start of the fight and the blond was sure his teammates were content with his vague answers and feigned innocence. He walked to his left and tapped Hinata on the shoulder.

Hinata turned her gaze away from the fight slowly and found the sparkling blue eyes meeting her own, she 'eeped' and fought the growing blush.

"N-Naruto-k-kun" she stuttered as their eyes remained locked.

"Hey, Hinata." Naruto greeted. "That guy down there, Neji, is he your brother."

"N-no." Hinata said. "H-he is my c-cousin."

"Wow." Naruto said as he watched Neji dodge an earth attack from behind without even turning his head. "He's almost as good as you. I guess being your cousin rubbed off on him."

Hinata watched Naruto for any signs of mockery after what he said and was shocked when she found none, "Uhm…Naruto-kun?"

The blond turned his gaze away from the fight once more, "Yeah?"

"What makes you think I'm better then Neji-niisan." Hinata's curiosity got the better of her stuttering.

"'Cause I've seen you fight and I've been thinking about the people in these preliminaries that I would not stand a chance against and you're at the top of that list." Naruto laughed lightly, he didn't know why he felt at ease exposing his thoughts to Hinata.

"T-that's not true Naruto-kun." Hinata protested with a shake of her head. "I'm weak."

Naruto raised an eyebrow; he could not believe that someone other than him had confidence issues, worst of all, someone with so much skill.

"You were the best fighter in our class." Naruto noticed she was about to interrupt him, so he decided to elaborate. "I know they gave that title to Sasuke but it belongs to you. I saw your fights, Hinata, you ran circles around everyone but for some reason you pulled your punches against everyone."

Hinata nodded, "I do not like hurting others."

Naruto from the fight and forgot to clench his jaw as the imminent frown and grim expression contorted his sunny disposition.

"Really?" he said angrily but quiet enough for only her to hear him. "You should stop that, when I noticed you use it against me, I thought you were making fun of me."

Hinata looked to the ground, "N-no Naruto-k-kun, I would never do—"

"Then stop holding back." Naruto interrupted. "Do you know how annoying it is to know someone is deliberately going easy on you. I thought you did it to limit yourself and get stronger but you're saying it was because you don't want to hurt others? I'd give anything to be as good as you are…and you're wasting it by not 'hurting others', don't be a ninja if you're not even gonna try your best. Because it hurts me when you don't"

Hinata looked up and saw his anger morph into sadness, she did not like hurting others but she despised hurting Naruto. He was sad because of her, she was not going to be like everyone else; Naruto didn't think she was weak.

_I need to stop hurting Naruto-kun. _Hinata had seen the way everyone treated him and she was not going to be a part of it dammit.

"N-Naruto-kun." She said quietly as their eyes locked once more. "I will not hold back anymore, even if you're my opponent, I will take you down with extreme prejudice."

Naruto smiled and they both turned to watch the other Hyuuga's match.

Neji caught his breath as he dodged yet another barrage of earth tiles, Kaito had kept him at a distance for the entire match with earth jutsu that seemed to come effortlessly to the Grass nin. He jumped from his spot as Kaito began another sequence of seals and chakra began pooling at where his feet had been.

"You're pretty quick on your feet." Kaito said smiling and stopped channeling chakra. With a glance at Naruto "Only one other genin has ever stopped my mud trap technique."

"I am no ordinary genin." Neji retorted. "Fate has decreed that you will lose this match and that I will win, your attempts are futile."

Neji fired off some shuriken and watched his opponent dodge them, he made a mad dash to close the distance and ignored the seals Kaito made as he closed the distance successful preparing his attack. The 64 palm attack lasted all but fifteen seconds.

Neji smiled triumphantly and spun around sharply with his hand extended to attack the air behind him, at that moment, Kaito crumbled into a muddy mess and the real Kaito materialized at the end of Neji's strike.

"Like I said," began Neji. "Fate decided your loss. The fact that you thought a substitution and a concealment genjutsu could work against me was foolish, but trying to engage me at close range was the height of your foolishness. Proctor, call the match."

Kaito fell to his knees, coughing out blood and glared at Neji for a moment before falling at Neji's feet.

"Winner," said Hayate after checking on the unconscious genin. "Hyuuga Neji."

Neji mumbled something involving fate once more and returned to his team. Naruto smiled and wished Hinata good luck when he saw the names on the screen.

_KANKURO VS HYUUGA HINATA_

Naruto watched approvingly as Hinata sprang into action the moment Hayate started the match, he gulped as her strikes tore through Kankuro like he was cannon fodder, then Kankuro turned into a wooden puppet with half it's parts on the ground. The real Kankuro unwrapped himself and stared at the Hyuuga heiress with pure rage.

The puppet's arms broke off and launched their bladed tips at the Hyuuga, who bobbed and weaved gracefully. Then she made some swiping attacks at the air and the arms fell to the ground. Hinata aggressively went after the rest of the puppet, but missed once more and only hit the air around the puppet. She then turned to Kankuro, who had backed up against the wall.

"I-I've disconnected all y-your chakra strings." She said quietly but confidently. "Quit now and I won't have to do the same to your chakra coils."

Kankuro met the ultimatum with a battle cry and charged with a kunai in hand. Hinata surged forward and struck the arm a few times before it could descend, the kunai cluttered to the ground as it's owner's arm hung limply at his side. Hinata then settled into a stance that Neji had used before a mud substitution.

Kankuro fell to the ground motionless, halfway through to the 32nd palm. Hayate and the rest in attendance gaped at the Hyuuga heiress, she had controlled the match from the very beginning and had been vicious through it all.

Hayate coughed, "Winner, Hyuuga Hinata."

Kankuro was hurried away on gurney by the medic-nin when they discovered he could barely breathe, they shot Hinata a glare for making their job that much harder.

Meanwhile, a disguised Orochimaru couldn't help but lick his lips. He was glad he'd returned in time to watch both Hyuuga matches but the heiress had impressed him, she had obviously been well trained from childhood and had the talent to back it up. Hyuuga or Uchiha? Sharingan or Byakugan? After that display, Orochimaru wondered if he could create a hybrid dojutsu between the two, maybe he could find a way to mate the last Uchiha with the Hyuuga heiress; their children would definitely be gifted with raw talent alone even if the hybrid dojutsu never manifested itself.

Neji was mortified as he watched his cousin, he'd always believed himself the greatest prodigy of the Hyuuga, he thought that no one could come close to matching him, but a moment ago he worried if the main house had found a way to take even that from him. They had lulled him into a false confidence by making him think that Hinata was a failure. Damn them!

Hinata smiled her way back to her position with Naruto after getting congratulated by her team. He returned her smile and told her how great she had been. She worried for Naruto though, because now she knew she would never hold back in a fight again. She watched his golden locks dance over his eyes and wondered how he would look at her after losing if she ever had to face him.

_NARA SHIKAMARU VS TSUCHI KIN_

Shikamaru took his sweet time getting to the stage, he dragged his feet and slouched all the way. Naruto half expected him to fall asleep before even reaching the stage. His opponent was the last Sound-nin in the exam, Kin smirked and began the trash talk portion of the fight.

Naruto watched the match as he fell for another genjutsu, at least this time he noticed it. The multiple Kin's gloated some more until she was caught by Shikamaru's shadow. From there on, Shikamaru controlled the match and ended it by making Kin hit her head against the wall behind her.

"Winner, Nara Shikamaru!"

Naruto realized that every ninja besides Sasuke, him and Sakura had specialized at one thing only. Even he relied on the **Kage Bunshin no Jutsu **too much. He needed to improve on his other skills, specialize in more jutsu.

_TENTEN VS MIZUSHIMA ASA_

The two kunoichi jumped from each other the moment Hayate announced the start of the match, both of them surprisingly enough pulled out scrolls. Tenten launched about fifteen kunai from her scroll and Asa's scroll let out litres upon litres of water until the entire stage was ankle deep in the liquid. Asa had dodged the kunai and her hands flashed through seals, when more weapons came at her, the water in front of her rose into a high wall and absorbed the weapons with ease.

Asa flashed through more hand seals and the wave of water shot towards Tenten who had to run up the wall to avoid it, when the wave crashed against the wall and crumbled, she removed two more scrolls and more weapons shot at Grass nin.

Asa frowned as the hail of weapons with explosive tags hidden in between came at her, her opponent seemed to be a one trick pony and it annoyed her. If this went on any longer than she would die from chakra exhaustion, it's times like this that she wished she had the same reserves as Kaito.

She channeled chakra to her feet and instantly glided across the water at speeds fast enough to dodge the barrage of weapons and appear behind them, it was quite similar to a shunshin but cost her less chakra. What came next on the other hand…

Asa flashed through more seals and the water rose and formed a dragon, it charged Tenten and tore through the next barrage of weapons, it crashed into the girl and the match ended. Asa panted heavily as she tried to remain conscious from the chakra drain.

"Winner, Mizushima Asa!"

_TSURUGU MISUMI VS GAARA_

Gaara of the Sand made his match the second quickest and together with his opponent they got the award for the most disgusting one so far.

Misumi started by dislocating his joints and snaking around Gaara's ultimate defence, when he thought he could strangle the Sand ninja, he was peeled off like gum by the sand armour. Then Gaara covered him completely with sand.

"Mother will have your blood." He said and closed his fist. "Sand coffin!"

There was a muffled cry and sandy blood sprayed all over the floor. Then while smiling evilly, Gaara returned the sand and the remains of the older Leaf ninja to his gourd. He walked back to his team when he was announced the winner.

_ROCK LEE VS AKIMICHI CHOUJI_

"Ready?" asked Hayate.

"Yosh!" nodded Lee. "My flames of youth are ready to burn brightly, I wish you good luck on your flames of youth as well, Chouji-san"

"Sure." Chouji mumbled as he too nodded and reluctantly put away his packet of chips.

"Begin!"

Chouji wasted no time and instantly enlarged his right arm then he swung it at the already dodging Lee. The fist crashed into the ground and sent rubble flying everywhere but that did not deter Chouji who swung his appendage at the nimble Lee. This went on for a few moments until Lee dodged into a thinking pose and nodded, "I see." He said. "Truly your flames burn bright and true, but I'm afraid mine might rival yours today."

Naruto was struck at how modest Lee could be, the older genin was by far the strongest genin Naruto had seen. Sometimes he wondered if Lee deserved the title of greatest ninja he had ever seen, coupled that with modesty he continued to show, it was just amazing.

Lee burst forward like bullet and attacked with his Leaf Hurricane. A spinning kick transformed into a roundhouse kick that sent Chouji sprawling to the floor.

"I give up!" said the big boned genin as he unsuccessfully tried to get up, only to have gravity drag him back down.

Lee lent him a hand and helped him to his teammates with a promise to help him stoke the 'fires of his flames of youth'. Naruto looked at the screen for one last time.

_UZUMAKI NARUTO VS INUZUKA KIBA_

"Hah!" laughed Kiba as he raced towards the stage. "Looks like we got lucky, Akamaru, we got the dobe."

Naruto met his opponent at the stage and noticed that his jacket was going to be a hindrance so he began unzipping it slowly.

"You should just save time and declare me the winner." Kiba announced. "I'll end this in a single attack! This will be faster than that hot Sand chick."

A tick appeared above Temari's eyebrow. _Don't let that happen, Uzumaki._

Shikamaru couldn't help thinking how lucky Kiba was. He was getting easily the weakest genin out of all of them. The others thought more or less along those lines, the loud blond was in over his Naruto finished unzipping his jacket, Hayate spoke.

"Ready?" The special jounin looked between the two.

Kiba concentrated chakra and his features became more feral, his nails became claw-like and his canines lengthened. Then he surged forward when he noticed Naruto was distractedly inspecting his jacket. In a second, he closed the distance and his elbow crashed into the blonde's solar plexus and sent him to the ground.

"Just like I thought!" Kiba yelled triumphantly.

_Oh Naruto, that was embarrassing. _Lee grimaced.

"Didn't expect much from the kid, but that was just troublesome." Shikamaru said.

"What was that?" Kankuro asked. "I blinked and it was over."

"You're one to talk." Temari spat menacingly.

"You're just mad that he beat your record." The puppet user retorted.

Naruto had his eyes closed and found the ground quite comfortable as he heard everyone's comments, they were talking about him just like they always did, like he was nothing. He got his breath back to normal and tried to remember why he hadn't blocked.

_Can't be 'cause I really need to get this jacket off._

"Inuzuka Kiba—"

"Yeah yeah, I know. I'm awesome and I win." Kiba interrupted.

"No." said Hayate as he paused for the first time without a cough, "I did not start the match yet, try that again and I will disqualify you immediately!"

Kiba looked at the blond, "But he's knocked out."

Hayate ignored the Inuzuka boy, "Genin Uzumaki, please get up. We don't have all day."

"Why," asked Naruto without getting up. He needed a second to let the pain disappear. "got a hot date?"

"As a matter of fact I do. She's not a woman that enjoys being kept waiting."

Naruto sat up and yawned. He still couldn't shake his fatigue, "Alright then" He got to his feet and took of his jacket and threw it a good distance away, his black shirt had an orange leaf spiral on it and Naruto relaxed with the knowledge that his upper body had at least some orange on it.

"Let's try this again," began Hayate with his trademark cough pause. "Ready...begin!"

"You should have stayed down, dobe." Kiba said. "There's no chance someone like you can beat me."

"Someone like me?" asked Naruto.

"Yeah. Someone like you, the dead last loser. I'm an alpha of my pack Naruto; you're nothing but a pack less gamma."

"So what you're saying is that the longer I stay in the ring with you, the more stupid you look for claiming you can beat me with one strike."

Kiba growled and dashed at Naruto and swung his fist at the ducking blond. The miss left him open to a kick to the ribs, he had to duck another to his head and threw a punch that was blocked and countered. The fist to his jaw led him to back track to catch his breath. He didn't have to go to all this trouble against the class loser, he could easily overwhelm him by activating his **Beast Mimicry** again but he wouldn't.

Kiba threw a smoke bomb and had Akamaru take care of Naruto in there. He wasn't surprised when Akamaru's form came out first.

"Good work boy, knew the do—"

There was a puff of smoke as 'Akamaru' transformed back into Naruto, the jumping fist attack sent the Inuzuka a few metres back.

"You bastard!" growled Kiba with a hand wiping the blood from his lip. "Where's Akamaru?"

"Right here." Another Naruto said while holding said dog by his hind legs.

"Now you've done it! I'm done holding back, I don't care if it kills you."

Kiba activated his **Beast Mimicry **and tossed a food pill to Akamaru. The white dog growled and turned red just before it started to grow, the clone holding him popped out of existence and Akamaru was by his master's side. Akamaru turned into a clone of Kiba and both looked at Naruto like he was dog food.

Both dog and master turned into identical tornados of black and white that came at Naruto with a deafening roar of **Fang Over Fang.** Naruto jumped to the side and narrowly avoided the first tornado, the second one grazed passed his arm and ripped his shirt. Naruto grit his teeth and ignored his bleeding arm as the tornadoes came at him again, this time he dug into his pouch and pulled out his shuriken and aimed them at both Kiba and Akamaru. And as he expected, the shuriken bounced off them harmlessly as they continued their way towards him.

Naruto jumped out of the way and just made it to his jacket while avoiding both attacks completely. Kiba stopped the technique in time to watch Naruto throw his jacket aside again, this was getting them both nowhere.

Kiba pulled out another smoke and tossed it at the blond, who didn't even try to escape.

_That idiot!_ Thought Kiba. _He won't be able to see a thing._

Naruto sighed as he heard the sound of Kiba's technique once more and activated his sensory abilities, both tornadoes were coming at him together again, so separating them like that wouldn't be easy. He dodged much easier now that he only relied on sensing the chakra signature, avoiding it all together took less effort. Then the techniques stopped and Naruto seized his opportunity as the smoke began to dissipate.

The smoke cleared to reveal three Kiba's, but the real Kiba punched the one on his left, but Naruto had expected this. He transformed into Akamaru the moment he skid to a stop and waited.

He sensed the surge of chakra after another punch followed Kiba's confusion and was on Kiba the moment he realized his mistake, a knee to the abdomen and a side thrust reminiscent of Lee's own later and Kiba was on his back. Hayate went to call the match as Ino and Hinata said how amazing he was at their respective volumes.

Then Kiba got up and the glare he shot the blond promised pain. Hayate coughed and backed away once more.

Kiba bit into his hand and tried to control every urge that told him tear open Naruto's skull and use it as cup for his victory party, but that's exactly what his opponent had been leading him towards, he needed to calm down. The moment he did, he used his superior speed and knocked down the blond with a swipe of his claws at the blonde's back.

Naruto stood up slowly and wondered why Kiba let him get up, he wondered why he'd let Kiba do the same. The truth was, they both wanted to humiliate each other and this was one way of ensuring that, by letting the other think they stood a chance. When Kiba attacked again, he swiped at Naruto's chest this time but was met with Naruto's blocking arm, then the other hand became a fist and hit his face twice before he dug his claws out of Naruto's arm and jumped back.

Naruto ignored the pain in his arm, he realized he could not follow Kiba's speed but one thing he could follow was the pattern of attack. Kiba never attacked from the sides, he was either directly in front or behind. Now he just had to guess correctly.

So Uzumaki Naruto closed his eyes and settled into his terrible taijutsu stance and waited. Kiba would obviously go all out and aim to end the match with his next attack and so would Naruto. He pushed a lot of chakra around his right food and followed Kiba's chakra as it paced around him.

_Oh well. _Naruto thought thankfully. _At least I won't have to use Ino's idea._

When Kiba came surging forward in another zigzag pattern, Naruto assumed he'd go after his back again and so, when he felt that Kiba was close enough, he thrust his foot behind him and hit nothing but air.

Opening his eyes he saw Kiba's clawed fist fly past his face, Naruto dropped his right foot hastily and aimed his left foot's thrust at Kiba's jaw but without enough time to pump chakra into the attack, Kiba grunted and stumbled back but stayed on his feet.

_Damn it, he's tough. _Naruto thought angrily. He didn't know that Kiba was thinking the same.

What Naruto knew was his eye closing trick wouldn't work again, Kiba wouldn't make the mistake of leaving himself open to another attack. Sure enough, Kiba's **Fang Over Fang **roared at him a second later.

Kiba felt his technique hit Naruto head on, until the blond poofed into an orange jacket with an explosion tag on the inside. He stopped his technique as fast as he could.

Naruto merely concentrated chakra and activated the seal, "Boom." He sighed as the Kiba fought to untangle himself, he managed to but was too close to the explosion and was rocketed to the ground.

Naruto began walking towards the stairs as the battered and singed Inuzuka got to his feet in the middle of the arena.

"Where…do…you…think you're going?" Kiba panted.

"Genin Uzumaki." Hayate warned. "If you step of the arena floor then you forfeit."

"Calm down." Naruto waved without turning back and formed a familiar cross seal. "Kage Bunshin no Justu." He said quietly as two Naruto's appeared at his sides.

The clones nodded and ran towards Kiba, the first one perfectly copied Lee's upwards thrust to Kiba's jaw and the other one jumped higher in the air then Kiba was kicked and swung its foot down into a kick of its own, Kiba's face kissed the clone's shoe before kissing the floor and he didn't get back up this time.

"Winner, Uzumaki Naruto!"

Naruto dispelled his clones and felt the deafening silence weigh down on the room. He climbed the stairs at a pace that Shikamaru would be jealous of.

"That was amazing, Naruto-kun." Hinata said and instantly the dam broke as the other genin began murmuring amongst themselves and looking at Naruto.

"Yes." Shino said. "You have an exceptional talent for surpassing expectations."

"What were you expectations?" Naruto asked as the medics shot him glares when they examined Kiba's bloody mess of a face.

"Expectations are an emotional based belief. Logic dictated that one of you would win. You merely had a less likely chance, but I never ruled you out. I was simply commenting on the expectations of others."

Naruto walked back towards his team before he started believing that Shino made any sense.

"Good job, Naruto." Kakashi eye smiled.

Sakura mumbled more or less the same thing but kept her head lowered.

"Would all the winners make their way down here, please." Hayate said.

Naruto glared at the jounin, "He waited for me to climb all those stairs just so he could tell me to walk back down, bastard."

"Now now Naruto" Ino said as she sashayed passed him, "No one likes a whiny Willy."

Shikamaru gave him a look of pure disbelief when he walked passed, Neji ignored him completely, Temari on the other hand winked at him, which was almost as unnerving as Lee's blinding smile.

"Yosh! Naruto" he said. "I expected nothing less from my eternal rival."

"I thought Sasuke was your eternal rival." Naruto asked.

"Of course, you are my rival as well."

Naruto watched the green spandex wearing teen leave in a daze, their entire encounter already had him entertaining thoughts of underestimating Lee again.

_I'm onto you Lee._

When Asa walked passed, Naruto decided to follow the black haired girl. "You sure took you time with that one."

Naruto shrugged, "He was better than I expected."

"I won't go easy on you this time." She said dangerously.

"And I won't send a single clone this time. How does twenty sound?"

The girl stopped and looked at him as he walked passed. _He can make twenty clones? Is there anyone in this tournament with normal chakra._

The Hokage began another lecture about their duty to the village while the matches were prepared. When he was done, the screen showed the match ups.

_ROCK LEE VS HYUUGA NEJI-TEMARI VS NARA SHIKAMARU—HYUUGA HINATA_

Hinata would face the winner between Shikamaru and Temari. The other half of the table was far more interesting to Naruto.

_UZUMAKI NARUTO VS UCHIHA SASUKE-MIZUSHIMA ASA VS YAMANAKA INO—GAARA VS ABURAME SHINO_

"Finally!" Naruto said as they were dismissed, he made his way to his apartment and fell asleep. He never noticed the white haired man stop by his apartment and restock his fridge and cup ramen collection. The man then watched him sleeping for a moment and left.

Tomorrow Naruto would find Kakashi and get the man to teach him that cool lightning jutsu, that would surely make him stronger. And of course, he'd have to learn a few of his father's jutsu this month, the old man could help him with that.


	3. Chapter 3 Bloodline: Kage Bunshingan

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters but in the post-apocalyptic world, this might be the only data on the orange clad hero. So I'll leave petty things like 'ownership' to the zombie/gorilla rulers of the future planet earth.**

**A/N: I'd like to think Naruto's sensory abilities stem from his father as Minato could detect enemies by placing his finger on the ground. Since he had no earth release techniques, it probably has nothing to do with vibrations. Karin Uzumaki's sensory prowess seems to be more specialized and complicated, I never understood how she could find Danzo without ever meeting him and from a good distance away. I have no reason to make his sensory abilities that powerful, his is more of a chakra radar and completely limited to knowing that chakra bodies are nearby, he cannot sense his own chakra reserves though. Also, my romance sucks so feel free to tell me where I went wrong.**

**Now let's get this show on the road!**

**BLOODLINE: KAGE BUNSHINGAN**

"Kakashi-sensei—"

Our favourite blond was cut off by a waving hand, "The answer is no, Naruto?"

"But you didn't even hear what I was going to ask."

"Yes I do," said the jounin sensei. "You wanted to ask if I can train you for the finals and I can't, have a lot of more important things to do."

Naruto clenched his jaw, he knew what the more important things were. He had arrived a few minutes earlier and listened in as Kakashi had stated that he would be training Sasuke for the rest of the month.

"I get it." Said the blond. "Scum of your skill is hard to come by."

Kakashi had expected a loud verbal retaliation but what he heard was nothing like expected, "What did you say?"

"You heard me," spat the blond. "The more important thing you're talking about is Sasuke. When we first met, I thought you were nothing like the villagers, I thought you didn't care what was inside of me. But I was wrong, only difference between you and them is that they have the guts to hate me to my face!"

Kakashi was taken aback, he just thought that Sasuke had a better chance of becoming chuunin. He knew he couldn't teach the blond, he didn't have the patience.

"Naru—"

"Never mind," Naruto interrupted with a wave of his hand. "On our first day you said those that abandon their comrades are worse than scum, well Hatake, I do not care if you abandon me."

Naruto turned around, "Oh by the way, I didn't come here to ask you teach me, I came here to check up on Sasuke."

Kakashi could tell Naruto was lying but before he could apologize and introduce him to Ebisu, the blond disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Meanwhile the real Naruto was on his way from the library with stacks of scrolls and books, he handed off the mini-library to a few clones that had appeared when his clone's memories from the hospital flooded his mind. Naruto had intended on going to the hospital himself but his research on the Nidaime Hokage had him very interested. The man had invented the **shadow clone **technique, along with two other S ranked techniques, **Hirashin **and **Edo-tensei. **There was no information on the other two but the **shadow clone** technique's theory was detailed save for the required hand seals.

So Naruto used his clones to run errands and read books for him, while he did things like visiting the Hokage. He was surprised he hadn't thought of this earlier, he technically didn't have to be anywhere personally.

The secretary was as mean as ever but to Naruto's knowledge, she acted like this with everyone. She was just naturally cranky and Naruto loved her for it, because his prisoner had nothing to do with the sneer she gave him as he walked passed.

As soon as Naruto walked in, his senses located five chakra signatures in the room. The four near the walls with reserves a large as Kakashi's that he could not see. ANBU. The fifth was seated behind a desk, an old man wearing a white hat. His reserves were the ones that surprised him, they were massive, Naruto's senses were being overloaded just by being near him.

"Old man, I didn't know you were so strong." Naruto said in awe.

"What are you talking about?" asked the aged kage.

Meanwhile Naruto was busy doing some calculations. _Lets see, if Sasuke, Kiba, that Grass nin who lost, Kakashi, all the ANBU in the room and maybe that Gaara kid combined their chakra. Damn…only Gaara makes them equal the old man's. Although it's weird that Gaara has more than Kakashi-sen—Hatake, its weird that Gaara has more than Hatake._

"Hmm, you say something old man?"

Hiruzen sighed, "What do you want, Naruto."

"To talk to you in private, can you tell the invisible guys to actually disappear for a while?"

Hiruzen was shocked, the ability to sense ANBU was a rarity. The last one he remembered being able to do that was Itachi. Kakashi learnt the art after some training but for some reason Itachi…and Naruto could do it without it. Hiruzen kept the surprise from his voice and face and signaled the ANBU to wait outside.

"Kakashi has taught you some interesting things."

"Hatake taught me tree walking." Naruto growled. "And you lied to me about my parents."

"I have no ide—" began the Sandaime hokage but was stopped by Naruto's cold stare, there was even a trace of killing intent, it made the blond look years older than he actually was. "I was going to tell you when you became a chuunin or turned sixteen. How'd you find out?"

Naruto talked about the memory and everything that happened, everything except the masked man. The masked Uchiha would face only one person and that was him. They settled into silence after Naruto's tale. Then the hokage broke it.

"I'll have ANBU drop by the directions to the Namikaze estate" he noticed Naruto was about to interject. "You don't have to move in now but one day you will, when you start your own family. I can let the public know of your status the moment they start asking questions."

Naruto shook his head, "No, they have no right to that. No one needs to know that."

"It would help you become hokage."

The moment the sentence left his mouth, Hiruzen noticed the preteen's grimace. He was worried, Naruto had believed firmly in becoming hokage. Hiruzen had been sure that with the boy's determination, it would have become possible.

_What happened to you, Naruto?_

As if reading his mind, Naruto answered, "I grew up, I wanted to be hokage for the village but this village wouldn't even make me hokage even if I singe handedly saved them from another demon. They hate me and now…I didn't wanna believe it before but now I know…I hate them more!"

"I'm sorry you feel that way." Hiruzen sighed, the only reason Naruto had tolerated this village was because of him. He had actively instilled in him the Will of Fire. It still burned brightly but Naruto was too caught up in his emotions right now, so he knew that for as long as he was here to guide him, the boy would come around soon enough.

"So what can I do for you?"

"Can you please get me a trainer for the chuunin finals? Since Hatake decided to ditch me for Sasuke."

Hiruzen's eyes flashed in anger for a moment, he would need to have a talk with the copy ninja. But then he smiled, if there was one thing that would help Naruto stay loyal it was training. He had noticed the same in Itachi. But Hiruzen was worried that Naruto would attack the villages in retaliation rather than when ordered to. Itachi was more loyal to the village than his own clan because he had trained alongside comrades that had strong Wills of Fire. If he were still around, Konohagakure might have it's first Uchiha as hokage.

Sarutobi Hiruzen dug into his drawer and retrieved a piece of paper after wrestling with a stapler. He handed it to Naruto. The boy wasn't ready to master nature manipulation but it would keep the youth occupied for the next month or so.

"Channel some chakra into the paper, my boy"

Holding the paper between two fingers, Naruto hid his confusion and did as he was told, the paper split into two halves and separated almost instantly. One piece stayed in his hand and the other flew behind him and landed in front of the door.

Hiruzen was about to let the boy know his affinity and explain it to him when his old nemesis walked in, Danzo. Looking as decrepit as ever with a cane and a bandaged up eye and arm, the man embodied a weakened shinobi that had lived passed two great shinobi wars.

Naruto felt his senses flare up the moment the man entered, this old man that looked older than the hokage had just as much chakra.

Danzo recognized the paper in our young jinchuriki's possession and noticed its partner at his feet. He picked up the paper and marveled at the clean cut of the chakra sensitive material.

_The boy has a strong affinity for wind. Sarutobi you fool! If you had only let me train the boy. The fourth's boy! How did I not notice? I should have dug deeper ._

Danzo thanked kami for Sarutobi's lax approach to security and returned the slightly damp piece of paper. "Water and wind affinities, that's most impressive."

"Thank you." Naruto said, looking for the usual look of mistrust and hate. It wasn't there, but there was something hidden in the gaze the man pierced him with.

"You'll meet your new teacher at training ground 48 at the crack of dawn. Today you have the day off." Said Hiruzen as he bid his young charge farewell.

Once the door closed, Hiruzen and Danzo engaged in a staring contest for one minute longer than it had the last time. Finally, the hokage lost patience and spiked his killing intent (KI) and Danzo responded in kind.

"What can I do for you?" asked the hokage when Danzo was tricked into averting his gaze by a fallen stapler.

"I will train the boy in his elemental manipulation." Was the simple reply.

"Why? Because of his heritage?"

Anger flashed across the eye of Danzo. "You and I both know I've wanted to train him since the day he was born. Now that I know who he is, its more reason for me to train him. You have done a poor job, Hiruzen."

The hokage did not retaliate, he knew Danzo was right but he had wanted Naruto to always have a choice of whether or not to become a ninja and if he chose to be, it would happen normally.

Danzo concealed a smirk when he heard the hokage sighed, "I will train him for the entirety of the month and turn him into a competent ninja."

"All that in one month." Said the hokage sarcastically.

Danzo allowed his voice to rage for a moment, "You should stop coddling the boy! He is not some spoilt brat that needs you to hold his hand! I will not allow your softness to disrupt the potential of the Yondaime's legacy!"

"Watch your tone." Hiruzen warned.

Danzo calmed himself, while he was a powerful ninja in his own right, he knew Hiruzen was more powerful. Even now, as a shadow of his former self, Hiruzen was still stronger.

Silence reigned once more but there was no childish contest this time, both knew that things were serious.

"Jiraiya wants to give him access to the summoning scroll, you will help Naruto with the other skills Jiraiya will obviously forget about." Hiruzen paused to refill his pipe. "Make sure he realizes why his father saved this village. Naruto has come to terms with his hate for the villagers and I fear that the moment I die he will turn missing-nin"

In the hour that followed, two old warhawks, discussed the newly discovered presence of the Ichibi jinchuriki. They even took into account how the Iwa-nin would react once they heard that the son of the Yellow Flash was Naruto. Neither of them liked the new village, Otogakure. They talked about how to destroy said village, it was dangerous. Both knew that new villages were dangerous to the world's balance. War might be at their doorstep but sooner than either of them knew.

Meanwhile, Naruto had decided that he needed to add more orange to his wardrobe. He walked around aimlessly, looking through windows for a flash of his favourite colour. His sensed the chakra of everyone, the civilians were small and almost insignificant, only the ninjas actually appeared. Some would have their chakra flare when they noticed him and the rest simply resorted to the usual hateful glares. One teenager 'accidentally' bumped into him. The teen was huge with a proud moustache, he sneered at Naruto.

"Aren't you gonna apologize?" the teen asked smirking down at Naruto.

"You bumped into me." Naruto growled, he was done letting people walk all over him.

The teen laughed, "So what?"

Naruto's eyes narrowed, "What do you mean 'so what'?"

"My mother told me that you're beneath us, you're nothing but trash and you should show the proper respect to the rest of us."

Naruto watched the burly teen gesture to the crowd that was slowly surrounding them. The entire crowd smelt of glee and the smiles on their faces said it all, if he had not seen that memory, he would think that they just needed time to understand. He would think that the villages were justified for what they did. But if all the older generations knew he wasn't the Kyuubi, if they had seen the real Kyuubi then how in hell could they think that he was anything like it. Did they just think the Kyuubi was acting to enact some sort of diabolical and somewhat suicidal plan to kill them when they least expected it. Or did they just want to make him suffer, that wasn't going to happen anymore.

Naruto dispelled all the clones at the training grounds and smiled evily. He let his chakra flow, put his hands in his pockets and suddenly a **Kage Bunshin **poofed into existence behind the teen. The clone had already positioned it's kunai at the teen's neck. His clones had not mastered it individually but with all their knowledge, he had. The sealess **Kage Bunshin, **even the Nidaime hokage couldn't boast that.

"Boss is a ninja" the clone said. "He is well within his rights to kill you right now for that insult of yours."

The crowd began to back away, they were told the blond was a failure. Not someone who could actually retaliate.

Naruto slowly observed the dispersal and his smile grew in size and malice, Gaara had the right idea. Kill first and ask questions later. Unfortunately he had learnt something much better in the Wave country: intimidation. The fear of being killed was far more rewarding.

Naruto concentrated his anger and mixed his chakra with it and directed it at the teen. The teen stammered, his mouth moving without producing a sound for a moment. Then Naruto got exactly what he wanted, the fear in the older boy's eyes increased and he proceeded to wet himself. He frowned a bit when he felt a ninja approaching.

_Not as strong as Zabuza's yet, he made me think I was dying with his killing intent but this works too._

"I—I—I'm so—sorry."

Naruto nodded and could barely control the volume of his smile, "Too bad. My clone's don't like it when I'm insulted. Besides…I need to learn my place right?" Naruto calculated how long it would take the ninja to arrive then held up his hand to stop the moustached teen's pleas, looked at his clone and said. "Kill him."

The clone pretended to adjust itself in a more throat slitting position and slowly began to apply pressure, but just as it broke the skin, the clone disappeared in a puff of smoke.

The ANBU that had dispersed the clone eyed the blond curiously. She had been told that Naruto was a loud and annoying idiot. But what she had seen was borderline sadistic, it reminded her of Anko way too much. She had been told to keep her distance as the boy could sense ANBU. She had mentally scoffed at the very impossibility of such a thing but now, as she watched this boy size her up, she knew he had been waiting for her.

"Took you long enough," Naruto said as he watched the purple haired cat masked ANBU disperse the crowd further. He had never seen a female ANBU before.

"Uzumaki Naruto. You are not allowed to harm villagers." She said.

The small group cheered a little more confidently, until the ANBU layered them with killing intent that put Naruto's to shame. Even Naruto couldn't fight the small bead of sweat that appeared at the top of his whiskers. Clearly KI was something that took getting used to.

"Neither are the villagers allowed to antagonize ninjas, be lucky that Uzumaki was lenient."

Naruto raised an eyebrow at the ANBU, "Thank you."

The encounter lasted a few moments then Uzuki Yugao went back to watching the blond from a distance and Naruto went on ignorantly believing that Yugao's signature was one of the many ninjas he'd passed on his walk. Word spread faster than the blond could walk and soon the most hateful villagers held their glares until he had walked passed.

Naruto caught sight of orange in a store and instantly went inside, the jumpsuit he found had less orange then his usual but he guessed it would have to do. When he came out, his black and orange far outclassed his burnt and mangled blue and orange. He had always known that his favourite colour was the worst possible choice for a ninja but he was sure he liked it. When the hokage had questioned his wisdom in the colour choice, Naruto had smiled toothily and replied, _"If you can be a ninja while wearing orange then you can do anything!" _

Naruto smiled politely as he placed the money on the till next to his old clothes.

"You need 50 more ryo." Said the bald middle aged man, he had a smirk that eerily reminded Naruto of his pranking smile.

"How is that possible, I added it up personally."

"You forgot about the orphans' tax."

Naruto's eyes narrowed, he wasn't sure he could duplicate a killing intent so easily against a man.

The man smirked some more as he saw the reaction, then there was a puff of smoke and he was bombarded with killing intents from fifteen different directions, "Are you sure!" asked the mass of smiling blonds. The man shakily took the money and stuttered that it was enough.

Naruto didn't dispel his clones and simply told them to go to the training grounds and multiply, he needed to learn how to control where his clones appeared.

"Urgg, you go shopping and you buy another orange jumpsuit?"

Naruto stopped his walk and turned to the blond head of Ino. He couldn't help feel the need to run away from her, because of her he did not have his old jacket anymore.

"I had to replace the one you helped me destroy."

Ino put her hands on her hips in mock anger, "And how exactly did I help you get rid of that disgusting excuse for fashion?"

Naruto pouted, "You probably used your mind techniques…"

_Wow, he's adorable when he does that._ Ino thought, then had to mentally slap herself for thinking that, when he went into a rant about how orange was the best colour in the world. _Stop it, Ino, he is not cute. This is just you trying to repay him for cheering you on._

"Naruto!" she scolded and cut him off before he began lecturing about the significance of the colour in the rainbow. "What are you gonna do about Sasuke-kun?"

"What do you mean?" Naruto asked, he truly did not want to talk about his teammate that everyone loved.

"I mean… how are you going to beat him?" Ino never noticed the subtle vote of confidence when she asked him but Naruto did.

_Wow, she actually believes I can beat Sasuke. _He thought with a smile. _Let's test that._

"Oh that," he said casually. "Was just gonna quit when my turn came. I mean there's no ways I can beat your _Sasuke-kun _right?"

Ino stopped, for some reason it stung her to think that he would sell himself out so quickly, she knew he was right though. Sasuke was the best in their year! But Naruto was so much nicer than… she just didn't like this side of him.

"Oh please, don't tell me my fellow loud mouth blond has decided to take this moment as the one that makes him lose confidence. Nope, you're coming with me to train right now."

So she promptly dragged the preteen the training grounds, she even tried to force him to reveal some of his strategies.

"I normally just throw a thousand **Kage Bunshin **at a problem until it disappears." He declared with an embarrassed smile.

Thankfully they arrived at a training ground not occupied by his clones, instead they found team 8 there.

Hinata was the first to notice the two and instantly felt a pit in her stomach when she saw them holding hands. Shino followed soon after and then the sparring duo of Kiba and Kurenai. The resting team 8 greeted the duo, Shino was as formal as usual and Naruto had to reprimand him for calling him, "Naruto-san". Hinata on the other hand shot Ino a glare for the entire length of the boys interaction, then she turned to Naruto with a smile and blush and greeted him.

"A— ano are you guys o—on a d—d—ate?" Hinata asked when Kiba and Kurenai arrived.

Ino was about to say something when Naruto grinned stupidly and interrupted her by wrapping his arm around her in a hug, "See Ino-chan," he said in an imitation of a baby voice. "I towd you they would noticed."

Hinata nearly broke down right there and then, she had thought that after the preliminaries she had grown closer to her crush and that he had finally come to notice her.

_But it seems like he only likes blue eyed blond bimbos. _Thought the darker part of Hinata.

Kiba simply wondered how the class loser had beaten him and gotten a girlfriend before him. Shino was too busy marking his future opponents with a bug each and merely believed that it was logical for two people that were so alike to be attracted to each other. His father had explained as much about it when he had been younger, sometimes he thought 'the talk' had traumatized him to muteness for most of his childhood. No child should learn so much so soon.

Kurenai kept her eye on her favourite student, she could only imagine how Hinata felt watching this.

Ino tried to hide the blush that threatened to creep up on her, she had never been held like this and for some reason she enjoyed the feeling of warmth and protection.

All of them were brought out of their musings by Naruto's laughing, he actually had tears in his eyes, "Wow you guys are too easy. You should have seen the look on your faces, it was priceless…I'm just kidding."

Hinata sighed in relief and watched Ino push Naruto away and punch him in the shoulder, her eyes narrowed when she noticed the blush on the blond girl's face.

_Is that the type of girl Naruto wants? Someone who will be more assertive?_

Kiba's eyes narrowed as well but for entirely different reasons, he had been training all morning and here Naruto was, still playing pranks and laughing like the world was just fine.

"How could an idiot like you beat me?" Kiba thought out loud. "Here I am working myself to the bone and you're 'just kidding'? Do you know how much I trained, how hard I work?"

"Kiba-san," began Shino. "I do not believe—"

Kiba interrupted his teammate, "Fight me again!"

Naruto watched Kiba take a fighting stance after Akamaru appeared at his side, Naruto looked at the white dog. "Does the mutt have to be a part of this again? He'll just be in the way."

"Hey!" protested Kiba, "Akamaru and I are a team."

Naruto laughed, "I was actually talking about you."

Kiba growled angrily, while everyone else laughed at his expense. When everything settled down, an angry Kiba, a neutral Akamaru and an excited Naruto moved to engage each other on the field.

Hinata constantly glared at the cheering Ino and resolved to cheer more openly for her Naruto-kun the next time. She still didn't have the courage for it yet.

Meanwhile, across town, Danzo had the attention of the entire civilian council. He'd hoped to break the jinchuriki's will to the point where submission was the only option by giving civilians free reign to do what they wanted throughout the boy's childhood. However, his talk with Hiruzen and a report by Uzuki Yugao made him realize that he had been promoting defiance rather than submission.

"_Give him a reason to want to stay. He's his father's son after all." _

"Uzumaki Naruto is a citizen of Konohagakure and a ninja." He said. "His mistreatment will no longer be tolerated any of you, you will treat him with the respect he deserves and nothing else. Tell your shopkeepers and families the same."

There was instantly a murmur of defiance from his audience, he took a page from the young blonde's book and snapped his fingers, instantly his masked ANBU agents had tanto blades at each member's neck.

"Do I make myself clear?" asked Danzo, with a concealed smirk. Konoha would have a loyal jinchuriki even if he had to use Shusui's eye to make it happen. But there was no reason to so far just yet.

Hyuuga Hiashi had watched the fight between the Inuzuka and Uzumaki end relatively quickly. He had expected the boy with a clan to win, how could a peasant defeat any noble blood. He watched his daughter's reaction to the blond and nearly allowed a smidgen of emotion to appear on his face. Contrary to popular belief, Hiashi did not hate his first daughter, he simply preferred Hanabi. Hanabi was still his little girl and listened to him diligently and hadn't discovered…feelings for boys yet. Hanabi also reminded him of his wife, while Hinata reminded him of his dead brother.

Hyuuga walked down to the field, "Uzumaki Naruto." He said to the boy that had his daughter blushing.

Naruto faced the pale eyed man and looked him straight in the eye. "Yeah?"

"You will stay away from my daughter." Hiashi said calmly.

"Why?" asked the blond, he dared the man to say something stupid. He still had not gotten over his earlier anger and Kiba had not helped…much.

"Because I said so." Was the simple reply.

"Oh," said Naruto, an idea formed in his head when he watched the expressions of team 8 and Ino. "So I can't see her anymore?"

"Yes."

"I can't talk to her anymore?"

"Indeed"

"And absolutely no touching her?"

Naruto watched the confusion flash across the Hyuuga head's eyes. "That does conform to my command."

Naruto turned away from Hiashi and faced Hinata.

"I'm sorry, Hinata." Naruto said.

"I—it's okay, N—Naruto-kun." Hinata wanted to scream at her father for separating her from her crush, she wanted to beg Naruto not to listen to him but everyone did what her father told them to, it was how her life worked.

"You didn't let me finish my apology." Naruto said with a scolding wave of his finger. "I'm sorry but I don't like your tou-san. And from now on, if I don't like someone and they tell me to do something, I'll do the opposite."

No one had time to react as Naruto proceeded to hug Hinata tightly. Only the girl's cheeks responded to the contact.

When Naruto pulled away, he chuckled at her "eep" when he kissed her…on the cheek. Naruto smiled and waved goodbye to the shocked genin and jounin and angry Hyuuga head. Naruto's departure also allowed him to miss Hinata faint with a happy grin on her face. Ino felt a pang of jealousy at the incident and cursed the love gods for toying with her emotions.

Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Sandaime hokage, felt a chill in the air. He felt as though someone was on their way to his office for the explicit purpose to come and badger him over a force he wouldn't be able to stop.


	4. Chapter 4 Untalented Namikaze

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters but as much as I enjoy the original, Kishimoto can't hate me for seeing what could have been. The inspiration for Naruto's jutsu came to me after reading 'Hurricane Suite' by The Pro, however, the plot and execution are all mine. If the definition differs from how it's meant to be in cannon then simply accept mine as the new truth.**

**A/N: Sorry it took so long, just trying to find a way to build up to the invasion, I'll let you know now, this will be a long and slightly insignificant next two chapters so brace yourself and I like to tell myself that when the action begins it will all be better you should do the same. I also plan to make Naruto's strength solely his own so don't expect the nine tail's cloak at all. Also won't be able to throw around the names of jutsu in fluent Japanese; sometimes I'll just describe it without the name. Naruto will seem "bi-polar" though that's not the term I'd use, Naruto is serious here but I do want to avoid the whole angry or brooding emo cliché as much as possible and for that, Naruto will have to fluctuate but hopefully not rapidly. He won't be smiling all day or frowning all day, expect him to go through all emotions you'd normally go through in a day. He's not insanely focused on killing the Kyuubi and Obito like Sasuke is with Itachi, he knows it will happen, just not one track minded about it. As for the pairing, all I know is Hinata right now is not right for Naruto, Ino might help fix that or she might be the one herself.**

**Thanks for the reviews…especially the criticism. Warning: This will be intentionally slow until at least the chapter after next. I need to make Naruto's growth realistic and get a hang of his new personality, also need his opponents not be complete pushovers. **

**UNTALENTED NAMIKAZE OR DISAPPOINTING UZUMAKI?**

For the next few days, Hyuuga Hiashi would allow his paranoia and paternal instincts to get the better of him, some would think uncharacteristically so. His daughter, Hinata, always had a minimum of at least three guards with her outside the Hyuuga compound and whenever a Naruto was unlucky enough to cross his path, he would turn it into smoke with palm strikes personally, ofcourse he didn't know it was a clone.

Meanwhile, Naruto didn't know why he had kissed Hinata, his hug should have gotten his point across well enough. He had not needed to go any further. Maybe his prankster side had taken a perverted turn, he should have known that all that research for **Pervy Ninjutsu **would come back to haunt him.

He turned on the lights, he still had half an hour before sunrise, and examined himself in the mirror.

_Strange, I don't feel like a pervert… maybe it just sneaks up on you. _

Naruto arrived at the training ground after dispelling and recreating his shadow clones, each of them knew what they had to do. Some went in groups, while others went alone and did their job. His clones absorbed hokage related knowledge like a sponge and he was glad for it. He had learnt almost everything a genin level ninja was allowed to know about the legendary ninjas. The only hokage his clones actively avoided reading up on was the Yondaime, truthfully, he was afraid of what he would find. He had the perfect image of his parents in his mind, they loved and were willing to die for him; that was enough for him.

_Maybe I'm not perverted, maybe I just like Hinata. _Then Naruto shook his head of such thoughts.

"Nah," he laughed. "That's definitely not it, I barely know anything about her. Don't even know if she likes orange, but then again Sakura never seemed crazy about it either."

When dawn came, Danzo was right in time, he watched his future student turn and face where he was concealed by a genjutsu.

"That's quite a unique talent." He said revealing himself, he had a plan on how to exploit it already brewing.

"Yeah, it's pretty cool. Uhm…who are you?"

"I am your sensei." Danzo said gesturing to himself, then gestured to Naruto. "Mind starting us off with introductions?"

Naruto nodded, if he didn't have his senses, he might have found this old man weak but he knew otherwise, "Okay, I'm Uzumaki Naruto. I like ramen and the colour orange. I dislike the two minutes it takes to make instant ramen. And my dreams for the future…" Naruto paused as he processed new information from a clone. "my goal…is to learn everything about my opponents."

Danzo nodded, "Yes, that's quite the determination; it's good to see you taking your chuunin promotion seriously. I am Shimura Danzo. I live to protect Konoha and detest anyone who would do it harm. My goals are to turn you into an acceptable ninja and have you win the Chuunin exam tournament." He paused. "And my dreams for the future is to become hokage."

Naruto glared at the man, "Are you making fun of me?"

"Of course not, that is my genuine dream."

Danzo walked over to a tree and plucked two leaves, he handed one to his student. "Your job is to cut the leaf in half with just your wind chakra, it is the easiest step by far."

Danzo held the leaf between two fingers then the leaf split in half, "I suggest you master channeling wind chakra using both hands first then do it the way I did."

Danzo watched Naruto take the leaf in both hands and begin. He was giddy with concealed excitement, training a great ninja was a dream most veteran ninja had. Doing that alone granted you more fame and reputation, reputation that helped when you'd want to become hokage. Jiraiya was already a candidate for what he turned Minato into.

However, Danzo's giddiness eventually wore off after the 160th leaf that was only slightly cut. The boy had been going for hours and Danzo was immediately realizing why he'd never noticed the boy's parentage, from what he could see, the boy was nothing like his father, his father was considered a genius among genius. Naruto showed none of his father's ability if he couldn't cut a simple leaf in less than 6 hours.

Litters of leaves were strewn all over the training field that they had rented for the day, Danzo felt the same kind of frustration he'd felt when the Nidaime had appointed Sarutobi as hokage, he felt the same frustration now that he'd felt when Sarutobi had offered to hold off the enemy forces in a suicide mission.

Danzo looked upon the son of one of the most powerful, respected and feared ninja in the world and held nothing but contempt. He felt like a fool, he should have known, just being the son of a powerful ninja didn't ensure you would become one too. The Shodaime's children, Umino Mastsuki's son and Sarutobi's sons were nothing special if not exceptionally mediocre. However, what of Hatake Sakumi's son, the Sandaime Raikage's son, Uchiha Mikoto's first son and Sarutobi Sasuke's son. Kakashi, Ay, Itachi and Hiruzen all had exceptional parents and became exceptional themselves, so why was this Namikaze so untalented.

Wouldn't a ninja birthed by two powerful and dangerous seal masters be unstoppable? Danzo suppressed a sigh under the shade of his tree, this boy was a disappointing Uzumaki and a sad excuse for a Namikaze. Danzo couldn't believe he'd wasted an entire morning on this failure.

Meanwhile, Naruto hadn't even noticed how much time had passed. He hadn't because his clones all over town had taken up every ounce of his concentration by dispelling regularly…or in some cases, getting themselves hit by 64 palms. The henged ones at the library had come across one of the Shodaime hokage's most powerful opponents who'd apparently had the ability to control the Kyuubi. His clones got particularly excited when they realized he had been an Uchiha and had been tracing that Uchiha until his death. The death of Uchiha Madara brought Naruto back to reality, he quickly created a clone and dispelled it, he needed to focus for now; revenge could wait another day.

Danzo walked over to the boy after the clone dispelled. He needed to end this day before it became even more of a disappointment.

"I'm afraid I have to leave you now." He said.

"Sorry Danzo-sensei," Naruto replied. He took the leaf between two fingers and felt his chakra morph rather easier now, the leaf split in half. "But can you show me the next step before you go?"

Danzo didn't let the unnerving display register on his face, "Very well, you need to cut a piece of rock in half." He pointed at a few at the edge of the field.

Naruto formed a clone to go get the rock while he studied Danzo's behavior, his clones hadn't gotten a chance to go through human psychology yet, but he believed that wouldn't help at all. Naruto had just wasted hours on what should have been a simple task and the man showed no hint of frustration. Even Iruka, who didn't hate him, got irritated when he deliberately wasted time on simple tasks.

The clone returned and Naruto placed the rock in his right palm, he didn't want Danzo to think that he was an uncommitted student. Naruto's wind element chakra created a breeze around his hand and he slowly willed it to attack the rock and soon it started slicing. Naruto imagined and could feel the blades of wind moving back and forth on the rock. Sounds of metal on rock could be heard as the 'blade' swung across the rock surface.

It took a few seconds but soon, Naruto had cut through the rock and through a bit of his own skin, he was bleeding slightly.

Naruto frowned, he'd thought it would be easier than that, now Danzo was surely going to leave and stop training him. The man could hide his frustrations well but Naruto had noticed the same when Iruka had started actually paying attention to him. Teachers didn't like students that couldn't understand fast enough.

_*flashback*_

"_Alright, Naruto" Iruka said while rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Let's try this one more time, go through the seals slowly."_

_Naruto scrunched up his nose in concentration, since his second time failing the genin exam, he'd been spending all his time trying to master the clone technique. This was the week before his third try and Iruka had been helping him every day after school. There was three puffs of smoke and a moment of anticipation. _

_Then the pale looking clones were revealed and the anticipation was gone, Iruka frowned and Naruto began to prepare a speech about how he was going to be hokage without mastering the clone technique or letting his voice dip into sadness._

_Iruka sighed loudly, this was hopeless, "Naruto just go home, you can practice own your own some more tomorrow, I won't be able to help you out anymore."_

_Iruka believed that it was better if Naruto failed the exam and didn't become a ninja. After all, what if he was in a life and death situation out in the field and the only thing that could save him would be a __**Bunshin. **__Iruka smiled and gave Naruto a sympathetic look._

_But little did Iruka know that before becoming sympathetic, his face had shown another emotion: condescension. Naruto had caught it, the look cut of his ability to make a speech and made him realize how alone he truly was. No one would put up with him. The next few days, Naruto took to pranking to overcome his anguish._

_*end flashback*_

The day after that, Naruto had asked Iruka to 'help' him with his shuriken throwing practice. Iruka had been so proud that Naruto could do it perfectly ninety percent of the time. After that Naruto had resumed his extra lessons on his **Bunshin no Jutsu.**

Back in the present, Danzo was sure he was dreaming, no one could create such potent wind blades, he'd actually felt the chakra saturated air. He was sure that if the boy were to use fuuton as he was now then many people could get hurt, the boy included. Danzo had only heard stories of ninjas in Sunagakure with such a strong affinity. The stronger the chakra, the more violent the release, however, if left alone, over the years, the boy's ability to control his main affinity would deteriorate. He was certain that if Naruto did not start nurturing his water affinity as well, it would be completely over-powered and replaced by the wind affinity. And that would have made his ability to master simple wind manipulation that much more difficult.

"There is much room for improvement." Danzo said with genuine concern in his voice. "I will need you to tame your wild chakra before I teach you a single wind jutsu, clearly your emotions are a part of the problem."

Normally someone was taught how to sharpen their wind affinity as control came naturally, for the young blond it would have to be the exact opposite.

At Hyuuga compound, the entire group of elders along with a few branch members knelt around in the dojo as the clan head and his daughters took center stage.

"Hanabi and Hinata will now fight for title of heiress." Announced the stoic Hiashi, he'd already let out his frustrations on another clone and felt his equilibrium returning. Once Hanabi won, the elders would stop bothering him about Hinata. When the latter had progressed to the finals of the chuunin exams, some of the clan elders had been hesitant about offering up the title of heiress to the younger daughter without at least giving the true heiress a chance to prove herself as worthy, Hyuuga's needed to be sure.

"What?" asked Hinata, her stutter usually disappeared if she went half a day without seeing Naruto, but her voice was as quiet as ever and the elders nearly groaned at the sound.

"Were you not informed, Hinata-_sama?_" asked a slightly annoyed elder, the elder turned to a branch member. "Hitori, I sent you to inform her did I not? What could possibly have hindered you of such a simple task?"

The aforementioned Hitori fought extremely hard to hide his disgust at being addressed like a slave, he bowed reluctantly. "I apologize elder-sama, it will not happen again."

The elder sneered, he'd noticed the uncharacteristic moment of concealed contempt in Hitori's façade. Clearly the branch member needed to be reminded of his place. He prepared the seal but before he could activate it, Hiashi called for order.

"Enough! Regardless, Hinata, you will participate or forfeit your right."

Hinata frowned as she faced her little sister, Hanabi. There was a voice in her head that told her never to hurt someone who looked so much like her mother. However, there was another louder voice in her head, Naruto's voice, she had promised him she would never go easy on anyone when it came to a fight, her sister was no exception. Even Kiba had been supportive when she'd beaten him, Hanabi would have to deal with it.

The match began as Hiashi remembered the rest, Hanabi sprang into action almost instantly. Hinata dogded the palm strikes with fluid grace and the elders appeared to be pleased with Hinata's evasive tactics; it proved to them more that the current heiress was not fit to lead.

Hinata on the other hand knew her sister was far more practiced with the Juuken, she herself had resorted to teaching herself from ancient scrolls while her father personally tutored Hanabi, there was no doubt in her mind, Hanabi was the better Juuken user but, unfortunately for Hanabi, it wasn't that simple, Hinata loosened her stance after another dodge.

Hanabi swiped at her sister and scowled uncharacteristically when her sister relaxed, "You're in range of my divination." She said settling into a stance.

Hinata had seen her sister use this technique hundreds of times, hell, she had actually learned the 64 palms technique after having it used on her so many times. The advantage of being a pacifist and fighting a younger sister that had never held back before was that now, Hinata knew how her sister fought, she could see the rhythm! And before today, she didn't have the heart to take advantage of it.

"Eight trigrams, 64 palms!" both girls chorused.

Hanabi hesitated for a moment, she was sure her sister had not been taught this so when she noticed the loose stance, her confidence was reassured.

Most of the clan elders that had spoken up saw the imperfect stance and immediately regretted vouching for the current heiress, even the branch members couldn't help but be disappointed at the sight. Only one Hyuuga in the room anxiously awaited the result, they referred to him as Hitori. He licked his lips and almost as if on cue, the two siblings began their simultaneous assaults.

"Two palms!"

Hanabi's strikes were quick and flawless, just like she'd been taught; however, today they lacked their usual accuracy. Hinata's strikes were just as fast and she had the better reach, just as Hanabi's strikes were about to hit her in the chest, she dodged out of range and knocked them of course by striking her sister's wrists.

The subtle strike was soon forgotten to Hanabi, she had done this hundreds of times, she had never missed and at the speed that her hands blurred into the next strike, she had not noticed the parry.

"Four palms!"

Hanabi struck once more and Hinata abused her superior reach once more by stepping just outside her sister's reach once more and moving her counter strikes further up the younger Hyuuga's arms. By the time Hanabi called out her 64th palms. Her arms were as heavy as lead and one could swear someone had put resistance seals on her upper body.

The Hyuuga's were impressed, Hinata had ruthlessly led her own sister into a false sense of security and then proceeded to dissect her. The Hyuuga elders which had sincerely vouched for the clear winner felt pride at the skill shown, to them, they had been directly involved in the creation of this worthy heiress and in a way, they were right.

Hiashi was simply baffled, as were the pro-Hanabi elders. All stoic expressions were replaced by what was, for Hyuuga, reasonably shocked. All branch member's but one were happy that Hinata had won.

The last branch member, Hitori, had the unseen reaction of pure and utter desire, he had just seen the potential of the Byakugan once more. It was magnificent, the man, Hitori, rasped uncharacteristically. He could not wait to see the fully matured amalgamation of the Byakugan and Sharingan and once he had that ultimate dojutsu, he would find that arrogant boy's Sharingan would be no match. He needed to get both genin to begin his experiments.

"Hinata-sama." Said one of the elders, "That was truly an excellent display, the original Juuken clearly suits you well."

Hinata nodded in response and went over to unlock her sister's tenketsu, she felt bad but knew if the elders saw her apologizing then her win would be easily forgotten.

Naruto didn't like being told his emotions were compromising his training, at the moment, he felt that his emotions were the only things keeping him centered and focused. If it weren't for his hate for the Kyuubi and the masked Uchiha and the love he felt for his parents, he would probably be busy goofing off somewhere. Instead those emotions were allowing him to amass the knowledge he would need to complete his vengeance.

"No." was Naruto's reply when asked to undergo emotional conditioning. "Emotions are useful, I don't want to turn into those emotionless ROOT members, how am I supposed to go for infiltration missions when I can't even give a genuine smile?"

Danzo was about to retort when what the blond had said registered, "How do you know about ROOT?"

Naruto gulped, he had forgotten that ROOT had been the black ops of the black ops, knowing that they had even existed was as dangerous as knowing the hokage kept the Forbidden Scrolls in a double sealed secret compartment under his desk.

"Okay I may or may not have henged into an ANBU member, if this information was so secret then why keep info on it in the _public_ library of all places? Simply putting up a sign that says 'restricted area' and 'do not enter' is just asking for someone to sneak in."

Danzo nearly shook his head at the boy's antics, Uzumaki Namikaze Naruto was too impulsive, "When did you sneak into the restricted area?"

"Oh, a few minutes after you arrived. My clones love reading, what do you know about them, Danzo-sensei?"

Danzo tried to process what this meant…this boy wasn't untalented at all, that one thing was for sure. He would need time alone to ponder all this when he was alone. " Just that Ne or ROOT are the most skilled ninjas that come from this village."

"Are? I thought they were shut down years ago, for being redundant."

Danzo cursed his impulsive pride for his private army.

"My mistake," Danzo said carefully. "What do you know about ROOT."

"Just that they had above average chuunin and genin level ninja. Their jounin level ninja however were extremely mediocre."

Naruto raised an eyebrow at his sensei after that, for a moment there had been a slight chakra flare, "Wait, were you a part of ROOT?"

"That is beside the point." Was the simple reply.

"Then me being emotionally conditioned is the same. I am in perfect control of my mental state, did you notice that I haven't threatened to kill a single person today, didn't even have the thought cross my mind."

"And what about your clones, have they had any murderous thoughts."

Naruto frowned, "That's not fair, Danzo-sensei! You're just mixing facts to make a point."

Danzo smiled, the boy was extremely intellectual one moment and childish the next. He contemplated using Shusui's eye now but thought better of it. "Alright Naruto, we'll try it your way for now, however, if your wind manipulation isn't more stable by next week then we'll move onto your emotions."

The blond noticed it hadn't been a suggestion. And with that, Naruto was ordered to make an army of clones and got a scroll on chakra control techniques, Danzo left his student to his own devices and told him to be back at the field by the same time tomorrow. Naruto appointed one clone as leader, who had them all work on different steps simultaneously. Water walking, kunai balancing, water rolling and waterfall climbing. It all seemed usable one day.

Naruto created his last batch of clones for the day then fell to his knees panting, _Damn my pathetic reserves. I bet Sasuke could make more than 800 if he knew this teechnique._

He had never come across the chakra requirements for his prized jutsu, the library never believed it was necessary to add that this was a jounin level technique and so our blond protagonist gauged his reserves to be somewhere between chuunin and genin. The fact that it was a forbidden jutsu completely forgotten to him.

He had his new clones henge and go get scrolls on wind manipulation. His sensei had not said he should stop his 'suicidal wind manipulation' training, he would just delegate the training to the clones, if anything went wrong then at least he would have the memories to learn from.

As Naruto lay panting, his clones decided it was time to start streaming information back to him again. Almost a tenth of his 800 man army reported having threatened to kill someone, civilians seemed to live to test his patience.

_Maybe I should get that emotional conditioning after all._

Another clone had the pleasant surprise of meeting Ino while going on a ramen run. Naruto's stomach growled as he remembered his 30 clones decimating his food stores. His face, however became a smile as he thought about the Yamanaka girl. She was constantly laughing at his jokes and made him feel interesting. She had also decided to start calling him 'Naru-kun", the blond jinchuriki's clone barely held back a blush every time she said it.

Another clone had been roped into playing ninja with Konohamaru and his friends, however, before they even started, the hokage's grandson had issued a sexy ninjutsu challenge.

The real Naruto sat up and shook his head in disbelief, he blocked out the rest of the interaction, how could he be so childish. Another memory from most of his first clones in the woods told him he needed to be there soon, one had been destroyed with one thought in mind: _You need to see something. _The clone had apparently not seen what happened.

When Naruto arrived at the clearing, his army of blue and orange dressed clones turned and faced him. They were the ones in charge of the ninjutsu and taijutsu training. They were smiling.

"Look over there." Said a clone as it pointed at a tree about a metre away. Naruto obeyed and immediately felt a shimmer of chakra appear near the tree, then the clone disappeared in an explosion of sound. Naruto could not describe it but he knew his eardrums didn't like it.

He looked over at where the shimmer of chakra had been and saw his still smiling clone, "what the hell was that?"

"**Kawarimi no jutsu.**" Was the simple reply.

"That didn't look like a substitution, why was there chakra over there and what was the boom all about."

The clones proceeded to describe how one of the taijutsu group clones had performed a **Kawarimi **with a blip of chakra created by the group trying to master long distance and sealess **Kage Bunshin**. It all confused Naruto so he had them all dispel. There was no backlash of memories, the memories all seemed to know where to go in his mind.

The **Kawarimi no jutsu's **principal had never been explained to Naruto, the teachers had refused to help him, so he had taught himself how to do it. Much like the **Henge no jutsu. **Naruto didn't understand the specifics of the jutsu and had honestly never wanted to, what the blond did know was that there was no eardrum splitting explosion when you used it. There was usually a simple puff of smoke and you appeared where the object had been. His clones speculated that some ninja kept a partially sealed object, like a log, just for such purposes.

Naruto fell to his knees, panting again. He couldn't tell but his chakra was nearly done, but right now he was happy. His clones had found a way to make the **Kawarimi no jutsu **more useful. How it worked was that he'd create a sealess **Kage Bunshin **while controlling where it appeared, that seemed to never finish forming, so all that appeared was a shimmer of chakra. Then he'd use that chakra shimmer for a substitution, but when the chakra swapped with his clone, it dispersed violently, exploding with a loud boom.

What confused Naruto was that when his senses had picked up the shimmer of chakra, it was easily larger than Sakura's, if his clones had been active all day than their reserves should have decreased considerably, the shimmer of chakra created shouldn't have been nearly that large.

_Maybe it absorbed some chakra from the surroundings. _He thought tiredly, his knees wobbled dangerously and then the ground met his face and he was instantly snoring.

When a tall white haired man with face paint felt his godson's chakra begin to fade, he closed the distance he'd been keeping. Jiraiya had learnt earlier on in the day that whenever he was near, Naruto would turn his head ever so slightly towards him. The hokage had told him all about Naruto's sensory abilities but he had not truly believed it until he noticed it. So he entered sage mode and threw on a **Henge,** so he could follow the blond without being detected.

He picked the boy up and returned him to his apartment. Jiraiya decided to make himself some ramen and was shocked to find what he'd brought was already done, he sighed and went to go get some more.

As for the other chuunin candidates, they were preparing heavily as well. Gaara had begun throwing kunai at trees to curb the urge he had to find someone to kill. His father had sent a letter insisting that he keep the number of people he kill down to at least one a day, if he couldn't have his fill then 'Mother' would just have to wait until the day of the finals.

Temari swung her fan absent mindedly. She had learnt to sense her brother's bloodlust in the air, what worried her was that there was no trace of said bloodlust. That meant Gaara was suppressing it, it made her wonder how much worse it would be when he finally let his hunger take over.

After seeing the competition she had wondered if she should add some extra skills to her repertoire. In her mind only a few were viewed as threats: the Uchiha, the Grass nin with water jutsu and the Hyuuga relatives. Then she remembered why she was part of this invasion.

_I'm a wind style prodigy, no genin or chuunin out there has a stronger affinity for it than me. _She thought confidently, reciting some of the words her sensei had said to her. _As long as I don't fight Gaara, there's no chance I can lose._

At the Aburame residence, Shino could be seen fighting a former ANBU captain, the man had wavy brown hair and cold eyes, he didn't have memorable features and his expressions were even more dull. His name was Aburame Asura. Shino knew very little about the man, all he knew was Asura rarely employed the use of his kikai and spoke even less, but when he did, it was a deep and commanding voice. After seeing Naruto completely dominate Kiba for the second time in a field the latter's clan specialized in, Shino had cordially requested his father get him a tutor in taijutsu for the finals. It was only logical after all to assume that his current skills would be less than adequate. Needless to say, Shino was worried about facing Naruto, everyone on his team had been informed that Naruto specialized in one high level jutsu. Seeing Naruto handicap himself and still win so effortlessly made Shino wonder what would happen if Naruto produced fifty clones with even half the taijutsu skills the blond had shown.

So the Aburame genin took out a kunai and pressed on, getting his taijutsu improved by suffering countless bruises and wounds like he had been doing all day, like he would be doing for the rest of the month.

Rock Lee had been training all day, sparring his sensei. Lee had increased his weights considerably, he needed to become faster. Gai had assured him that he was the fastest genin in the tournament but Lee wasn't so sure that would last, Lee had seen another genin copy his taijutsu perfectly after seeing it only once, Uchiha Sasuke. Another had seemingly increased his reflexes to more than twice as much as what they had been 5 days prior, Uzumaki Naruto. Rock Lee had three rivals that he needed to overcome in one month, he would not be slacking off any time soon.

Asa, the sole Grass nin left in the tournament, had been climbing trees all day in an effort to increase her chakra reserves, if she had 6 months, she would be working on her taijutsu as well. Clones or not, if that blond genin met superior taijutsu then his clones would be just as helpless as him. So she had decided to increase her reserves, she would overwhelm the with superior ninjutsu, as far as she knew, she was the only genin with a water affinity in the tournament and her teammate had been the last with earth, larger reserves was all she would need to work on, after that maybe she could unleash the full power of the real water dragon jutsu on the blond. The only thing that worried her was Temari; her wind style would take some luck getting around.

Shikamaru was contemplating when he would decide to quit, he would have done it when he realized he would be fighting a girl again but then he would have had to answers questions from everyone there and that would have been a drag. If he did it now then his mom would nag him for the rest of the month, but if he didn't then he would have to find a way of looking like he was training without actually doing any of that troublesome moving. Thinking about it was giving him a headache, why couldn't he have been born thirteen years from now, then he wouldn't be here right now thinking about it. He cursed the world for making life so troublesome.

Hyuuga Neji was busy mastering his new technique with the help of his teammate, with his new ultimate defence he could crush the main house branch. Hinata wouldn't stand a chance.

Hinata was busy being instructed in the art of the Lion Fist, it was said to be a predecessor of the Gentle Fist. Since all it's users were dead or too old to pass on the style, Hinata was using scrolls and some of the elders as references. Every once in a while her mind would wonder to the blond haired Uzumaki, she had resolved that no matter what happened, she would tell him how she felt by the end of the chuunin exams.

Ino on the other hand had similar plans, she had decided that Naruto was much more welcoming than her childhood crush, Sasuke. She enjoyed being around the blond, something about him always seemed to make her happy. Even the orange was growing on her. Next time she saw Sasuke she would let the Uchiha down easy. He deserved to know he stood no chance anymore. Happy with her reasoning, Ino went through the seals once more, she still had to make her father proud and this jounin in dark glasses liked reminding her that he was the best tutor around and how he taught the 'honorable grandson', whoever that was.

Uchiha Sasuke was frustrated, he'd copied Kakashi's jutsu quite easily against the man's orders but when he went through the seals and tried to use it, his chakra flared into visibility for less than a second then it disappeared. _Won't make a difference if you copy a jutsu and you don't condition your body to use it. Some jutsu, like mine, need to be learned, although your Sharingan will make it so much easier. _His sensei's words reminded him eerily of Rock Lee's technique, a few moments after his win in the preliminaries, he found his right leg numb and immobile. The medics said he'd torn a muscle and that they'd had to reheal it slowly by making sure he couldn't move it.

He could not believe he'd lost to Rock Lee while his Sharingan had been active. His father would have been disappointed, he needed to redeem himself and with this jutsu, he would be able to prove that he was superior once more and then kill Itachi, if only Kakashi hadn't sealed the other power away.

After Jiraiya had restocked Naruto's food stores again, he went to see his old sensei. The reunion had only been going on for a few minutes before Jiraiya was outraged.

"What do you mean his jounin sensei isn't teaching him," he asked. "only reason I came back was to make him a toad summoner, didn't think you'd place him with a sensei who resented him."

"I don't think Kakashi hates his sensei's son. He probably just sees more of himself in the Uchiha."

Jiraiya shook his head, "That's no reason to play favourites at such an early stage, I at least waited until all my students were chuunin before focusing on Minato and even then I only did it cause Minato needed the most help."

Hiruzen raised an eyebrow, Jiraiya usually referred to his student as a genius among geniuses, he never admitted the truth out loud. Even now, people who had known Minato never cared to admit that the Yondaime had been a late bloomer who had been slightly above average throughout his genin years.

"I've been meaning to talk to him as well, I saw his other student fifght and she didn't seem to have improved above academy level since starting on team 7."

Jiraiya took off through the window, he already knew where Hatake would take a student for private training.

The other Sannin in Konoha was running into too many unexpected but welcome surprises. He just needed to begin preparations for his side project.

"Kabuto," he said. "I need you to go back to Oto and prepare for some fertility experiments."

Kabuto lifted up his glasses with a finger, "Who are the specimen?"

Orochimaru licked his lips hungrily. He wasn't going to answer, he preferred this to be a surprise. When he was done, he might have a dojutsu strong enough to take on that 'god'.


	5. Chapter 5: The Utterly Gutsy Ninja

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Ichiraku ramen, if mentioned below then understand it's just for the good of my fanfic world.**

**A/N: Orochimaru's creepiness is based off the way I saw him act in the prelims. As for Danzo, he is not going anywhere. I never found him evil, he was a grey character to me and I respect how much he loved his village, if I had time, I'd make him bond with Naruto. I also have a strong urge to make Naruto invincible, I'll try to resist for as long as I can. Next chapter will be short and sort of a filler. Still need to set certain things up before I jump into the chuunin finals and the war.**

**Anyways! I'm rambling.**

**THE UTTERLY GUTSY NINJA AND HIS FINAL STUDENT**

Naruto woke up gasping for air and drenched in sweat with silent tears streaming down his face. He ran to the bathroom and splashed his face with as much cold water as possible. Our orange clad ninja was having a bad dream…a nightmare….a memory. He could not forget how his parents had died. He could fight the urge to remember when awake but it seemed like his sleep was the one place where he wasn't safe. Naruto grit his teeth and dispelled the rest of his clones, then he went out into the morning cold and reformed them. He assumed ANBU had brought him home, the masked ninja had done it a lot when he'd been younger.

He hated feeling like this, he loved knowing his parents loved him rather than thinking they just abandoned him but knowing how and why they died, that hurt and he knew there was nothing he could do to get rid of it.

_I need to fix this._

Naruto sighed, he knew what that meant. More reading! He created five more clones and sent them to sneak into the library.

Naruto ate his early breakfast and walked to the training ground three hours early, he needed to work of some stress. Naruto's mind was increasingly starting to resemble a library, he knew too many irrelevant things and a few painful things that refused to leave his dreams alone.

So naturally, Naruto found a tree and started attacking it, he would have preferred to spar with a few clones but he didn't feel like losing consciousness in a field again. At least not so early in the day.

Jiraiya and Danzo approached their student as soon as dawn came. The two had discussed, at great length, how they were going to train him. Normally, the toad Sannin would never converse with Danzo or even consider teaching Minato's son what he had planned. But his visit with Kakashi had been shocking; the boy was teaching his student the **Chidori**. He could not believe the Copy Cat ninja simply wanted to teach the Uchiha that because they were _the same. _He'd nearly throttled the jounin for implying that his godson was less than equipped to go through that kind of training, in his opinion no genin should be messing with such dangerous techniques at all. Jiraiya had kept his cool, thanks to discovering that his old teammate had placed a seal on the Uchiha. The curse seal was now gone. And Jiraiya decided he would give his all into training Naruto.

Naruto gulped when he sensed the approach, the chakra the two were giving off was insane. How could a couple of grandpas have so much chakra?

"Morning, Naruto." Danzo said calmly, "This is Jiraiya of the Sannin, he will be helping me train you for the chuunin exams."

Jiraiya nodded and received one in return. He was too busy debating if he should teach the boy the **Rasengan, **the jutsu was his birthright but he wasn't sure a genin could be trusted with it**.** If Naruto was anything like his father then it would be damn near impossible to have him master it in less than six months. Minato had only truly excelled at creating his own techniques, jutsu he learned took him a bit longer but when he did learn them, he had them mastered and that's why the boy had been a genius.

"Today he will take care of your training and then tomorrow you will meet me. Treat him well Jiraiya."

Naruto nodded once more and stared at the retreating form of one of his senseis, then he turned to the other. His clones had come across the hokage's team. Naruto found it peculiar that a hokage was allowed a genin team.

"I heard you trained the father." Asked the blond, assuming this man knew about his parents.

Jiraiya laughed after making a decision, "Yes, but I cannot turn you into him, he was a genius that came along once in a generation."

"Good." Said Naruto, when he saw the confused look, he decided to elaborate. "I don't want to be turned into a mini-Yondaime. If you're going to teach me, you will not teach me anything you taught him."

Jiraiya shook his head, "The Yondaime's jutsu are your legacy, boy. They are not to be taken lightly."

"Well then teach them to someone else!" Naruto stated firmly with his arms crossed.

Jiraiya was about to retort and continue the argument, but then he realized how stubborn his godson was, the boy had gone through years of torture and hate with a smile on his face. It was tempting but he needed to work with him not against him, his opponent would have access to an A-ranked jutsu. Naruto couldn't master the **Rasengan **in time but he would make sure he was unbeatable.

"I should have known," sighed Jiraiya. "You are your father's son after all, how about I teach you only one jutsu that I taught your father and when you master it, I'll teach you jutsu that I never taught him."

Naruto frowned, he didn't want to be taught what his father had, everyone who knew would always find a way to compare them. He knew he'd have to live in his father's shadow for the rest of his life but he'd make damn sure that he didn't follow it.

Naruto nodded, "Fine, just one jutsu."

Jiraiya smiled, maybe the brat wasn't so stubborn after all. "First, lift up your shirt. Wanna take a look at the seal."

Naruto unzipped his jacket and complied. There was more than enough minutes of silence as Jiraiya examined the seal and hummed, Naruto decided to break the spell.

"So…" he said, hoping to sound as casual as possible. "Is there a way to take down a tailed beast…permanently!"

Jiraiya looked up at this, too engrossed to register that the kid wasn't supposed to know there was more than one. "Why would you need to know that?"

Naruto tried to shrug carelessly, but the Sannin noticed how tense the boy was. "No reason just making conversation."

Jiraiya was back to understanding the complex seal that was overlapped by another more simple one, then he heard his godson again.

"So, is there?"

Jiraiya didn't look up this time, "Kid, I don't know what you're planning to do, bu—"

"Not planning anything," Naruto said realizing his research was going the wrong way. "Just wondering why no one thought of killing them, instead of _sealing _them."

"Well there's nothing that I know of, but if there was then fuinjutsu would have the answer,"

The absent minded reply made Naruto frown again, more reading! His clones had already finished with the beginner's guide to sealing and after discovering that the first few guides were all theory, he'd decided that learning it wasn't important enough.

When Jiraiya looked up from the seal, he was sure of one thing, it had never looked like this before. From what he could gather, the seal was meant to be opened, his idiotic teammate must have seen this as well and purposely tried to close it. He wanted to try to open it again, Naruto would need the Kyuubi's chakra for what he had planned.

So Jiraiya brought his glowing hands back and just when he was about smack them into his godson's abdomen, he had to dodge a kick from behind. The swirling ball of chakra was on his mind and so it instantly formed in his right hand. Jiraiya had already smashed the technique into the orange clad blond before the kick was even complete.

The clone puffed into smoke, "What do you think you're doing?" asked the clone's creator as more clones appeared at his sides.

Jiraiya got over the shock of seeing a sealess **Kage Bunshin **and smiled at the decent amount of killing intent being directed towards him.

"Just trying to fix what my teammate messed with," Jiraiya said calmly.

Naruto's eyes narrowed dangerously as he prepared his new **Kawarimi, **"You mean Orochimaru? He did me a favor, the seal is better this way."

The toad sennin shook his head, "You will need the Kyuubi's chakra one day, kid. Besides your father—"

"My father is dead," one of the Naruto clones replied. "The fact that you keep bringing him up is more annoying than you think?"

"Regardless," said Jiraiya, taken back at being called annoying by a child. "I still have to put it back to the way it was."

"If you do that then I'll release the Kyuubi." The Sannin raised an eyebrow as if doubting the authenticity of the threat, "I know how to do it, all I have to do is give into the hate! So please stop reminiscing and let's get this over with."

"So we're just going to ignore the fact that you threatened to destroy the village?"

The blonde nodded.

Jiraiya shrugged it off, he needed to end this day soon, his urge to be perverted was getting stronger by the second. And from the way the kid acted, he knew he should keep that side hidden…at least for now.

So Jiraiya proceeded to have Naruto sign the summoning contract and showed him the seals.

Naruto kept a wary eye on the man as he practiced the seals, he decided to do them until he could feel his chakra flow effortlessly as he weaved the signs.

"What are you doing, gaki?" asked the clearly impatient Jiraiya, he'd expected the blond to jump right into the experimenting portion of ninjutsu.

The blond looked up from his meditative pose and practiced the seals one more time, "I'm trying to get my chakra used to flowing in the right way."

The truth was, Naruto was trying to see if he could get his chakra to flow before he weaved the signs, and by extension, he was trying to make the entire jutsu sealess…at the moment, he realized it was a ridiculous dream, his chakra just couldn't do it.

The blond stood up, bit his thumb and weaved the signs for the **Kuchiyose no Jutsu, **he slammed his hand on the ground;an intricate seal on the ground was followed by a puff of smoke and then both student and teacher were looking at the outcome: a yellow and brown toad the size of the boy that summoned it.

Naruto frowned in disappointment, he'd read up on the summoning jutsu and had been confident that he would do better, a summon was said to be able to rival the size of a tailed beast.

Jiraiya on the other hand could barely conceal his shock, it was unheard of to get this far with the summoning jutsu on your first try. The white haired sennin gulped, this was impossible.

_Maybe he's nothing like his father after all._

"I expected it to be bigger." said the Jiraiya after the toad disappeared, he didn't want his young apprentice to get full of himself. He crossed his arms and huffed, he had wanted the kid to spend at least a two days on this, not one.

"I'll try again, this time it will be better." Naruto pleaded.

But Jiraiya stopped his young apprentice, he had not expected the kid to take it so seriously, "It wasn't as bad as I made it sound, you did good, kid. To increase the size, just add some more chakra next time."

The Sannin saw his student was reluctant to stop, so he did the one thing he knew that got young apprentices excited, "How about I teach you the jutsu I used a moment ago."

Naruto could not contain his excitement and once the happy dance was over, he threw in some air punches. His clones had come across shinobi tactics. "Never show emotion on in the field" the book had said, however, this was not the field.

Then the blond remembered something and turned serious, "This is not something you taught the Yondaime is it?"

The toad sennin grew a wild grin, he was fighting the urge to burst out laughing, "I guarantee you, I never taught the Yondaime hokage, Namikaze Minato this jutsu."

Naruto did not like that smile but he sensed no lies in those words, "Fine, what's the jutsu's name?"

Jiraiya's grin became wider, "How about I tell you that when you master it. Now for now, we need water. I know a place with just enough water for both of us and anyone else who would want to join us."

A few minutes of walking later, Naruto and the still grinning Jiraiya were at the bath house. Jiraiya giggled when he found the peeping hole he made years ago unoccupied.

The toad sennin took out two balloons, he filled both with some water and handed one to Naruto.

He held his own balloon out, "This jutsu has three stages, the first is rotation. Now watch closely, cause I'm only going to show you this once."

Naruto did as instructed and watched the water balloon start to flow with chakra, it bubbled and then popped with a splash. Then the man turned and walked away.

"Where are you going?" asked the blond.

"Relax, kid" Jiraiya said as he neared his destination. "I'll be right here doing some…research. You just call me when you think you've got something."

Naruto watched his 'sensei' start giggling and peeking simultaneously. "Perverts." He muttered, an inner voice told him the man might be creating a Pervy ninjutsu to repel perverts but he highly doubted that.

Jiraiya was nearly a minute through his 'research', when he felt a tap on his shoulder. "I'm done" said the voice happily. Jiraiya was too busy giggling to register.

"You dropped you balloon, huh?" Jiraiya said as he pulled out a bunch of balloons absent mindedly. "Don't be ashamed, it happened to me all the time, here you go."

"Jeez, just stop being a pervert for a while and show me the next stage."

The toad sennin did not respond and just continued giggling. Naruto looked across the stream and began concentrating a sealess **Kage Bunshin, **it took two seconds longer than he would have liked. Once the chakra blip formed, Naruto switched with it, he felt wind push his hair back wildly the moment before and after he reappeared.

All the Sannin knew was one second he was watching a sultry brunette about to take off her towel then the next second his ear was exploding and he was blown off his feet by a blast of chakra. The toad sennin suffered vertigo long enough for most of the half dressed women to get over their surprise and find him on the ground behind the wooden fence.

Safe to say, the seasoned ninja stood no chance. He was beat heavily and mercilessly, Naruto was across the stream laughing his head off. This was the most fun he'd had in a long time, but a few moments into the beating. Naruto began to worry for his sensei.

Naruto walked across the water, marveling at the skill his clones had given him, Jiraiya of the Sannin was bruised and hurt. But he was still a Sannin nonetheless and had undergone 'pervert' beatings before, it took him ten minutes of groaning and glowing hands to stop the bleeding and decrease the swelling.

"How did you do that?" asked the Sannin.

"Paper bomb." Lied Naruto, he did not feel like revealing the secret to a technique he had not mastered yet.

"That didn't seem like a paper bomb."

Naruto shrugged, "If you weren't too busy peeping then maybe you would have seen what I did, are all Sannin as perverted as you or is it just the sennin that act like that."

"Don't you judge me." Jiraiya scolded with a finger. "I read all about your **Oiroke no Jutsu **in the forbidden scroll yesterday."

"I created that jutsu for people like you, Ero-sennin, if you're not here to teach me seriously then let me know now. I have better things to do."

Jiraiya shook his head of his earlier thoughts, there that word was again: _Ero-sennin_. He could clearly remember Kushina calling him that. The nostalgia was about to cause him to have a rare moment of sadness when the kid before him started walking away.

"Relax, kid" Jiraiya said quickly blocking the blonde's path. "I just had a moment of weakness," then his voice turned serious. "No one wants you to get stronger more than I do, trust me. Now let's see how far you've come with the first stage."

Jiraiya's eyes widened when he saw how effortlessly the kid popped the balloon. Even he had to gulp back some praise. He'd been told the kid had terrible chakra control, what he had seemed was quite opposite from that.

"Great, now I have to return all the extra balloons I bought."

Naruto raised an eyebrow, "How many did you buy?"

"Doesn't matter," Jiraiya pulled out a rubber ball. "Next stage: power. Get to it."

Naruto caught the ball, "Aren't you gonna give me a demonstration?"

"Nope, seems like that makes it way too easy for you."

"And that's a bad thing?" asked the blond.

The Sannin nodded and Naruto began to work on bursting the ball the same way he'd done with balloon. It was a grueling task.

He stood there for two hours, engrossed and getting watched diligently by his sensei, who seemed to have bought at least a shop's worth of rubber balls and balloons. Naruto got so frustrated once, that he unleashed a little bit of wind chakra on the ball, it was sliced in half instantly. Naruto felt proud of himself until he noticed an already bleeding cut through his palm.

Jiraiya healed the youth and then proceeded to scold him for taking shortcuts, Naruto nodded and continued his exercise. The chakra burns were brutal and his hand felt like it had been dipped in a steaming pot of ramen water, then been cut by a blade of wind.

When the two hours were over, it was close to noon and Naruto summoned his chakra into a violent storm, passed the point he'd been stopping and the ball finally burst with a huge burst of chakra. The blond was thrown back, off his feet, but Jiraiya caught him.

"Well wasn't that fun," laughed the Sannin. "Tell you the truth I'm glad it took you so long, how about we go get some lunch and I can show you the final stage."

Naruto found the ground shaky and his vision blurry, "No," he rasped. "Need to…master it, need to do it…one more…time."

Jiraiya knew the boy wouldn't be taking a break willingly, so he did what all loving but emotionally distant godfathers do, he knocked Naruto out with a chop to the neck and carried him to Ichiraku's.

Once their meal was done, the duo returned to the training ground where Naruto was shown the final stage and how it was meant to look like against a tree. So Naruto practiced the unknown jutsu for the rest of the day, Jiraiya refused to tell him the name until he mastered, so Naruto struggled on for the rest of the day until night came and he had to be knocked out and carried home.

Not completing the jutsu irked Naruto so much that even his nightmares had a swirling ball of chakra in them, he was sure that if he knew the name of the jutsu that it would become so much easier to master.

The next day he met Danzo, who spent four hours teaching him simple genjutsu. Naruto felt he was much better at the art then he used to be, but he was sure he could never use them effectively.

Danzo realized this as well and honestly hadn't been surprised. He'd read the reports over again to make sure he was right with his presumption. According to an academy teacher known as Umino Iruka, Naruto had been found with the forbidden scroll within an hour of stealing it. The war hawk took into account the time it would have taken Naruto to find a safe clearing and deduced that the boy had learned and mastered the **Kage Bunshin no Jutsu **in no less than thirty minutes. Yes, with those monstrous reserves and equally monstrous stamina, it was clear that Uzumaki Naruto had been born to be a ninjutsu specialist. Danzo shuddered at the thought of all that raw talent being wasted.

So Danzo spent another hour making sure the boy could effortlessly detect and dispel genjutsu, the process took longer than it would have with anyone else but Danzo knew it was of no consequence. When that was over with, he gave the youth his final chakra control exercise scroll and left for the day.

Naruto had finished the chakra control exercise all by himself and so that night he slept peacefully, there were no nightmares.

Only eventful thing about his night was that he was startled awake, there was an annoying whooshing sound somewhere nearby. He found the source in a glowing ball of chakra, warmly nestled in his right hand.

_Great. _He Thought, _I'm mastering lethal ninjutsu in my sleep._

Naruto marveled at the feel of the powerful chakra for a while, too scared to move for fear of realizing that he was still dreaming. His clones had been practicing this jutsu for a full day and hadn't mastered it and now, here was the result. Naruto then decided to drive the powerful jutsu into his wall, creating a perfect moon shaped hole.

The next day, he rushed to get the name of the jutsu and found the toad sennin waiting for him patiently, hopefully with all peeping urges gone.

"I mastered it!" he exclaimed. "Now you can tell me the name."

"Hold on." Jiraiya said, holding up his hand. "I need to see it."

Naruto laughed, "Sure."

Jiraiya could not believe what he saw next, Naruto had seemingly mastered the jutsu. It held for a second but when the youth slammed it into a nearby tree trunk, the chakra dissipated violently, leaving behind a spiral crater in the wood and blasting the youth back less than a metre.

As Naruto whined about how he'd inspected some hole to make sure it wasn't dream, Jiraiya did not come out of his stupor at all. He had seen how effortlessly the **Rasengan **had formed and been controlled, all three stages had been used. There was no doubt in his mind, Naruto had mastered it, whatever was holding him back must have been psychological, maybe he should talk to the little gaki?

Jiraiya shrugged, it would work itself out sooner or later. "Looks like you haven't mastered it after all."

Naruto glared at the man for a second, he hated that condescending tone, "I'll just do it until it works."

Jiraiya shook his head, "Not today, kid. I wanna see how you fight; I heard your taijutsu was a scary sight."

Naruto took a stance and Jiraiya struck almost instantly, with a roundhouse kick to the head that sent the blond flying.

Naruto recovered quickly and decided to go on the offensive, his own roundhouse kick was blocked easily and so was the spinning back kick it turned into. His one two combos seemed to take more energy to move at the speed he was used to and he practically jerked his body sideways to dodge a kick to the back of his head, a punch to the face sent the blond to the ground again.

"Wow" laughed Jiraiya. "How much do I have to hold back by for you not to completely suck, kid?"

_I don't understand. _Naruto thought as he got to his feet, _I saw him coming, I told my body to move. Must be genjutsu._

Our young blond proceeded to dispel the 'genjutsu' but nothing changed, he still felt like his body was working against him. It couldn't be that he'd been slacking, he'd done nothing but have his clones train in taijutsu since the second part of the chuunin exams, he'd even doubled the numbers. Why didn't he feel this when he'd been training with his clones…then realization dawned on him, his clones memories were applicable for anything but physical training.

Naruto let the sage down him once more with a punch to the jaw.

_Well this sucks, now I have memories of me being faster than I really am._

"Thing about **Kage Bunshin **is that they are only useful for a few things" Jiraiya said sitting next to where the blond lay.

"You knew!" growled the blond. "Then why the hell didn't you tell me instead of wasting all that time!"

"Just wanted to see how long it would take you to figure out. I won't hold your hand through everything…but I will help you with this alone, clones are not suitable for any kind of taijutsu training unless you're beating them up personally."

Jiraiya then put one hand Naruto's right arm and the other on the back of the boy's neck and proceeded to help him up. He also placed two seals on the parts he touched as well and the moment he let the boy go, said seals activated. Naruto's knees met the ground almost instantly.

"What…did you…do to me?" asked the blond, his body felt twice as heavy and had to put effort into breathing itself.

_Did I put the resistance seal on level two or one. _Thought the Sannin, then he shrugged. "Well I put a seal on you that _will _help with your taijutsu." He gestured to the quickly disappearing design on Naruto's arm. "It's called a gravity seal; it's going to make our sparring sessions much more interesting."

Jiraiya then continued their 'sparring' session like nothing had changed and our favourite blond was knocked around the training field effortlessly as the Sannin monologued the three most important aspects of taijutsu and how to use them to your advantage: speed, timing and power.

It took Naruto all day to realize that adding chakra to his limbs would help him move a bit better and the toad sennin took this as initiative to attack with some 'actual' effort.

Needless to say, Naruto was bruised and beaten at the end of the day. When he asked the Sannin why he wasn't practicing taijutsu katas for an actual style, the white haired man replied: "The best style is no style, you need to learn to move your body comfortably no matter the situation, now stop stalling and let's continue."

Naruto almost wished he was with his clones, redoing jutsu until they worked naturally but then he remembered why he was pushing himself so hard. That kid, Lee, worked hard and it paid out for him, he would have the same luck no matter what. An Uchiha Sharingan was the most powerful dojutsu known to the shinobi world. It could copy ninjutsu and taijutsu with one glance and it's wielder would be able to use that against you. That's why Naruto had begun his sealess jutsu mastery, that's why he thought the blue ball of chakra was perfect for him, he would never have his jutsu copied with rapid techniques like that. And what Jiraiya had given him, gravity seal, it was far more useful then weights, the speed and strength gained would benefit him greatly.

He would test how ready he was by fighting the last Uchiha, once he gained enough skill to surpass Sasuke, he would go after Kakashi, and then Itachi's sharingan would surely be the final test. Naruto was certain that Itachi was one of the most powerful sharingan users in history and definitely the youngest, if the age wasn't all wrong, Naruto would be sure that it had been Itachi with the mask.

Naruto would have put a few tailed beasts on his list of stepping stones but immediately discredited the idea, it's not like the chance to fight a jinchuriki came along every month, right? Sharingan users first, then find a way to use seals to kill the strongest tailed beast.

Naruto had even considered his own sensei, the age would have been appropriate and the hair could have been changed with a **henge,** but then there was the fact that the sharingan had been on the opposite side of Kakashi's own. His enemy had to be an Uchiha, a powerful one at that, Kakashi was skilled but the things Naruto had read about were simply out of Kakashi's league.

Jiraiya was impressed at his godson's progress, overcoming the first level of a gravity seal was impressive, but using chakra to do it was inspired. He would never get used to the level properly but this would speed up the progress considerably.

The next day, Naruto received his usual scroll much earlier than usual from Danzo and was surprised to find justu in them. And Naruto tirelessly, with his clones, learned them.

While watching the boy and helping him where it was rarely needed, Danzo decided to begin anchoring the jinchuriki to Konoha, telling him about Uzumaki Kushina and how, she too, once declared she would be hokage. He emphasized the love for the village with little subtlety. Danzo avoided mentioning the Yellow Flash because he knew although the boy accepted who his father was, he subconsciously blamed his father for his predicament. No, Naruto needed to be reminded about his mother and her love and loyalty for Konoha. This was also due to the fact that Jiraiya had mentioned the Kyuubi seal was altered and could probably activated easier by high emotional stress. The boy would need his emotions!

By the next week, Naruto had mastered a few jutsu from rank D to A. It seemed that Danzo had a universal collection of jutsu, Danzo spoke of his personal life unexpectedly and eventually had Naruto wishing he'd been born during the shinobi wars. Back then, each academy student was made sure they were prepared for war and thus, there were no E-rank **Bunshin **techniques necessary for passing. Each student was taught to cultivate their ninja skills specifically for taking on higher level ninja.

Naruto could see the pride in the man's eye as he spoke of how, as a genin, he'd killed a jounin by himself. The man spoke of how teamwork was less than necessary when academy students from Konohagakure could match any other village's chuunin level ninja. Back then, every student was important for maintaining the village's strength. The side of Danzo he saw wanted the Leaf to crush all opposition under its thumb, with him as hokage.

Jiraiya continued to 'train' him brutally and also tended to touch his neck ever so subtly after increasing the gravity seal level. His clones had finally finished and understood the intermediate fuinjutsu book, sadly, there was still no practical demonstrations yet, it was all theory.

The following week, Danzo gave the young Uzumaki a 'gift'. It was a single edged tanto and Naruto fought and held his emotions in as both his sensei and shinobi books had emphasized the importance of a calm demeanor and Naruto still heard Danzo hint at the lack of his control.

The tanto was not particularly special or unique, it only seemed shortened for someone of Naruto's height.

"When I was graduating from the academy, all wind natured students received such a blade. Take a swing."

Naruto complied and instantly cried out and dropped the weapon, that one single swing had created wind blades around the weapon, there was a gust of a wind and his right arm was nearly torn to shreds. Naruto stared at the appendage he could barely move and looked back at the impassive man who had caused it.

"Just like I thought." Said the old war hawk, so calmly that you wouldn't think that his student wasn't wheezing in pain with a bloody arm, "At your age, it's only supposed to create a gust of wind, wind that's more powerful the more chakra you add."

In between glaring and gasping, Naruto had an image of Temari, but the image was blurry, he was sure the blades had gone straight to the bone.

"Calm yourself. You're a ninja, master the pain!" said the one eyed man. Danzo signaled for the medic-nin ANBU when Naruto began to fight for composure.

"So…" Naruto said quietly between breaths. "It's…up to the ninja to add…the…wind blades"

Danzo nodded, "For you, all I need you to do is swing that blade without subconsciously releasing wind style chakra."

The ANBU arrived and instantly went to healing the barely conscious Naruto. Naruto noted that the gravity seal was still active and hadn't been damaged at all. That's what they worked on for the majority of their time left together, Naruto swung and swung the sword, even when he was training with Jiraiya, he left an army of clones that took turns swinging the sword and getting dispelled. Danzo also had Naruto try cutting a waterfall with his chakra, it was extremely easy for the blond and Naruto soon set to work by consciously saturating the air around him with his chakra. The wind blades were slowly becoming easier to control. And Naruto was glad he'd read up ahead on elemental manipulation, Danzo never brought up emotional conditioning ever again, instead , the man seemed to be trying to push him to have more emotions. The tanto was explained as since the Uzumaki clan were well versed in kenjutsu that he should be as well. Naruto didn't understand what the former Ne member's end game was but he sure as hell wouldn't be led around like a blind sheep, he had his own goals, he was the one using them!

xXx

The clan heads were informed about the impending invasion by the first week, the information had come to Jiraiya by an informant that had met him on the way back from unsealing Kakashi's student. That was the reason why Aburame Shibi was giving his son a 'pep' talk, two and a half weeks from the finals.

"I've noticed that you've been focusing intently on taijutsu, may I inquire as to why?"

Shino panted or more likely, breathed louder than usual. He took a moment and then decided to answer, "I have found my taijutsu skills sorely lacking, especially after seeing Uzumaki Naruto's progress with it."

"I see." Nodded Shibi, "You do not wish to be surpassed?"

Shino raised an eyebrow at that, "Its only logical that I strive to be the best I can be."

"Indeed," replied the older Aburame. "But is it logical to match the abilities of an opponent you might not even get a chance to face?"

Shino knew that was a rhetorical question but he shook his head nonetheless, Naruto's rapid progress had clouded his judgment. He still needed to work on his taijutsu but he would need a little more to defeat the Sand genin he had to face: Subaku no Gaara.

"Do not worry," continued Shibi "I have instructed Asura to broaden your training regime."

By this time the last Uchiha had mastered the famous assassination jutsu: **Chidori. **He had been a bit disappointed with the 'other' power being taken away but he knew it was for the best, Uchiha did not borrow power, they used their own. What would his father have thought of him if he'd kept that power? He was already getting strong under Kakashi's tutelage, he could feel it. Before the preliminaries, he had been surprised at Naruto's progress but now he was sure that he would breeze through his first opponent without even having to use ninjutsu.

Hyuuga Neji believed in strength or more accurately, he believed in hereditary strength. For him, certain people were born to be strong and the rest were nothing but trash. Which is why he felt such great disgust as he went through the details of one of the contestants in the chuunin finals: Uzumaki Naruto was a dead last. He couldn't do a simple **Bunshin. **He had no special skills and had received countless appeals that he be dropped from the program in the academy, which the hokage had always denied. If the fact that the blond was untalented and getting special treatment didn't anger him more, then finding out that the blond was a clanless orphan who constantly claimed he would be hokage completely infuriated him. His dislike for the blond was nearly as much as he had for Hinata. People like Naruto did not deserve to even be considered ninja.

xXx

Meanwhile, as the chuunin exam finals neared, three figures were about to begin discussing the fate of our favourite blond ninja. The three were the leaders of the Akatsuki, be it directly or otherwise. Black and white Zetsu were sharing a plant like body, split down the middle. Then came Tobi, the orange masked Uchiha that our blond wanted to kill, what not many knew was that his name was Obito. Not even the final figure: Pein, orange hair with an unnecessary amount of piercings and black rods.

Pein considered himself a god or rather, the man that controlled his corpse behind a reinforced barrier considered himself god. The mental strain alone was phenomenal, but the man had a privileged lineage, the man was an Uzumaki. Uzumaki Nagato they had once called him. But today he was Pein, a god.

"We should locate the jinchuriki," said rare the deep voice of Tobi. "Our plan needs to begin soon."

"Very well," said the orange haired man, "Zetsu, start with Konoha, they must have the Kyuubi."

Tobi growled uncharacteristically at this, "I am already aware of who the Kyuubi jinchuriki is, it's the last Uzumaki in Konoha."

Pein's ringed eyes narrowed; they had spoken about this before. Madara was convinced that Konoha would only trust their tailed beast to an Uzumaki, he believed that was too obvious. There was no way that the Fire Country would paint such a large target on their most powerful weapon.

"If he truly is the jinchuriki then when Zetsu gets there he will be able to sense the demonic chakra in him." He replied with finality.

Tobi nodded, "When Zetsu finds out I'm right…Uzumaki Nagato, we'll start the hunt with the Kyuubi first. Regardless of him being your distant cousin."

Pein visibly tensed at being called by his 'mortal' name, "Very well, it will be a good chance to test Itachi's loyalty."

And so Zetsu went off to locate the other bijuu containers, Konaha's Kyuubi was last on his list, he had heard about the skill of the Hachibi jinchuriki and wanted to see it for himself.


	6. Chapter 6: Dark Naruto

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, although I'm pretty sure Kishimoto hired some inception dudes to steal the idea for Madara (love that guy!).**

**A/N: This chapter is just for me to get used to Naruto's personality, something feels wrong with his image. Also have a problem with Kishimoto's clear favoritism, so the rest of the Rookie 11 will be slightly stronger(they can't be supporting characters if their strength is negligible). Well maybe not Sakura. She once said: "If both Sasuke-kun and Naruto got seriously injured…I wonder, who would I heal first?" Dislike her immensely for that, she will be without a doubt the least developed character. And as for any seal tampering, that's a must, just not an issue yet.(loved the idea of transferring Naruto's pain to the Kyuubi). I'm sure many of you have realized that Naruto can't stand against S-ranked ninja, not in a battle of strengths at least and my Naruto knows that, which is why he's patient, very patient. Believe me when I tell you, he's not in a rush; he thinks he has all the time in the world. Tobi on the other hand will not revive the Juubi or get all that awesome power, even so Naruto understands he stands no chance…for now. I wouldn't be happy if I streamlined his strength without any work either but Sage Mode? Hell yeah! Naruto mastered it and put Jiraiya's version (may he rest in peace) to shame. Still have no idea why Jiraiya never taught Naruto that or more jutsu. Genjutsu? Don't count on it, it's a gap I'm unwilling to fill. And what would Naruto be without Kage Bunshin and Rasengan? Those are a part of Naruto as much as the orange and love for ramen. Also, this is the Orange Kage not only because I found the name cool(which I did) I intend to make him hokage at all costs, not Sasuke as Kishimoto seems to be leaning towards.(Sasuke, hokage? I'd rather have Sakura become hokage, seriously!). Why I choose Naruto without instant/only-when-angry Kyuubi access? Because that takes away all that he's accomplished, even now, Kyuubi mode Naruto overshadows the former deadlast who mastered an A-rank jutsu, beat a tailed beast, created the Rasenshuriken by himself(an S-rank jutsu that he probably would have discovered earlier if his senseis taught him about elemental manipulation. Wasn't he the one who had S-ranked criminals after him? That does warrant some serious training right?) Not to mention his sage mode and beating the third raikage with a shadow clone! A shadow clone ladies and gentlemen! And he did all this with nothing but gentle nudges in the 'right' direction from both Jiraiya and Kakashi. Don't know if you can spell self-made but I just did.**

**Anyways sorry about that, just hate the who was the better sensei debate and I thought why not have a one sided discussion about why everyone is wrong. Okay maybe Fukasaku did a good job, but Naruto made it work for him. I guarantee you, my Naruto will be a decent ninja before he even thinks about a demonic power boost, but definitely no red cloak of chakra, cool when Naruto gets wild but it's not his power. **

**DARK NARUTO**

Naruto was sure he had a problem, he was regularly startled awake by a swirling ball of chakra in his right hand. Every day, even the dreams seem to make room for it. When he attempted the justu with a clear head, it dispersed, so his clones continued practicing it and others. Psychology books claimed talking to someone would fix the problem, he didn't feel like mentioning this to anyone.

When clones of Naruto walked through town, they had been noticing a change, the villagers didn't openly reveal their hate and disgust for him anymore. They fought hard to suppress it. Naruto didn't know the reason for this and honestly…he didn't care, Naruto found the villagers irrelevant, long gone was the dream to be 'acknowledged' he honestly found himself in a neutral position, he didn't need their approval. Naruto was too focused for anything else to have an impact, anything except Ino. He would have smiled but then remembered the last time a clone had met up with her.

_*flashback*_

_An __**Uzumaki Kage Bunshin**__ had plans to meet with his fellow blonde, she had told him where to find her. Upon arrival he frowned at her instructor then smiled when he noticed her sweaty form._

"_Oh hey, Naru-kun" she said when she saw him, she enjoyed the small blush on his cheeks._

"_Hey, Ino and Konohamaru's sensei." Naruto said, immediately noticing the change in demeanor._

"_**Boy," **__He said with a sneer, "What are you doing here?"_

"_Just here to get Ino, we're going to watch a movie." Replied the blond with a cheery smile._

_Seeing the smile, Ebisu's loathing visibly increased, even with the dark glasses. "Ino-san, I implore you to stay away from this de—this __**boy**__, he is detrimental to your progress."_

'_Naruto' frowned slightly, he was fine when the villagers hated him but going out of their way to deface him was unacceptable. He gauged the man before him, "an elite jounin" he'd once called himself. His chakra levels were the same as Iruka's, but he knew that wasn't all that made a strong ninja, he couldn't get in a fight now, not when he could lose._

_Ino didn't notice the rise in tension, "Naruto? Nah" she chuckled. "He's harmless, I bet he can't even spell the word detrimental."_

"_Your face can't spell the word detrimental!" replied the blond heatedly although with no venom._

_Ino laughed some more, she enjoyed teasing him. "Oh nice one, Naru-kun. Did you spend long hours researching and coming up with that?"_

_Naruto saw the growing distaste on the 'elite jounin' sensei's face. So he started sniffing the air, "Do you smell that?" he asked his first friend._

"_What?" Ino asked, her humor long forgotten. _

_With one last sniff, Naruto turned and faced her with a serious expression. "Smells like someone took a dip in the sewer."_

_Ino took a moment to realize that he was referring to her, she turned beet red, clamping her armpits shut defensively. Then she heard Naruto start laughing._

"_Just joking," he chuckled, when she punched him in the shoulder. "But seriously, you should consider a shower first, don't want people to know I went on a date with a dirty Yamanaka."_

_Ino turned her nose up and began to walk away, "Please, if anything people would think __**I'm,**__ the one going on a date with you."_

"_I don't think that made the sense you think it did!" Naruto called._

"_Meet me in an hour at my place." She shouted back. "Naru-kun."_

_There was no blush on the blonde's face as he turned to the sneering jounin. Just an air of the killing intent he'd been nurturing._

_The jounin passed between loathing and amusement at the weak KI, "You really think you can defeat me?" he laughed, taking a fighting stance. "I'm a jounin and I won't fall for your un-gentlemen like jutsu again."_

"_You misunderstand," replied the blond, with an interested stare. "I am not going to fight you, I am simply giving you a warning."_

_Ebisu snorted, how dare this demon even speak to him with such authority. It had none, he was an elite jounin and he…it was merely a demon._

_The clone waited for the jounin's internal debate to finish, then spoke. "Do not ever bad mouth me again or imply anything unacceptable about me."_

"_Oh, really." Ebisu sneered, he was going to make the demon pay. "And how are you gonna stop me?"_

"_Me?" the blond said, with an innocent tone. Then his gaze darkened and the killing intent increased along with it. "I'll just tell the hokage that you spoke of my…prisoner, in the presence of a group of children. If he doesn't execute you immediately, he'll probably send you to Ibiki."_

_Ebisu failed to hold back a frightened gulp, "Hokage-sama will ask for my side of the story first. He will never believe your lies, de—demon."_

'_Naruto' shook his head, "See there you go again, I'm not sure you've noticed this but your hokage-sama loves me, like a grandson. I say the word and we both know you won't live to see another day."_

_By this time, Ebisu was quivering and sweating bullets. Not because of the killing intent, that was nothing, but because of the pure truth in the de—Naruto's words. He was sure that he would not even be given a chance to defend himself. The hokage spoke so highly of Naruto and he indeed was loved._

'_Naruto' began walking away, his mood slowly becoming cheery again. "By the way, my name's Uzumaki Naruto, remember it and watch that mouth of yours, it could get you killed."_

_The clone chuckled, it was pretty literal in the jounin's case, if he spoke to him like that again, he wouldn't hesitate. He was not going to lose his first friend because of some idiotic jounin that had a superiority complex and misplaced logic. If he were the demon they hated him for then they would fear him as well, Konoha would not have his submission._

_*flashback end*_

Naruto shrugged the memory off and began his new routine, pushups, sit ups, stretches and then he took a full blown sprint to the training grounds and back. He was tired a little more than halfway there, Jiraiya had taken to increasing his gravity seal every time they met. He still hadn't come across such seals in his studies so that meant there was a hell of a lot more theory to go.

Arriving home, he took a quick shower and marveled at the scars on his body. He had never had scars before, they usually healed too fast, Jiraiya had implied that the Kyuubi's chakra had increased his healing factor, he had thought it was normal, he'd be dead if it wasn't normal. But for now, Naruto found the pain and the results of it…humanizing. It meant he had to be more careful now, couldn't just put his body in direct harm's way and still keep on fighting.

Naruto dispersed the clones but before he could finish, one of the clones with his sword sent him a message. It was still dark out so no one saw him use **Shunshin no Justu.**

Naruto found this jutsu extremely helpful, short bursts of speed in the blink of an eye. Only problem was that even with his concentration on chakra control, there was always a waste. Another thing was the moving in a straight line nonsense, if he could control his trajectory mid-flight then maybe that would make up for the fact that he couldn't use it continuously, thirty second intervals were annoying. Danzo had assured him it would get shorter the more he got used to it.

The blond genin raced through the woods to the place where he'd learnt the **Kage Bunshin no Jutsu **and found 15 of his clones watching Gaara. The sand genin had walked into the clearing a while ago, he didn't say much, just watched. Soon he asked if he could try as well, then there was some other incoherent stuff about mother. The clones complied and were shocked to see the difference between the way they held the sword and the way he held it.

Gaara was a kenjutsu master, that was the only explanation and if that wasn't bad enough. Each time he swung the sword, there was no muffled scream, flesh was not torn open and neither was blood splattered everywhere, there was also no damaged sleeve of an orange jacket. Gaara swung it around and instantly, gusts of wind appeared.

"I take it you've had practice with a wind sword?" asked Naruto after quickly dispersing his clones.

Gaara turned to face him and for a moment, Naruto saw something in his eyes. He'd seen it before, hate? No it was something else, looked like rage but he couldn't explain where he'd seen it before. Then the gleam of whatever disappeared and all that remained was impassiveness.

"No," said the raspy voice. "This is my first time. Your…clones must be extremely ungifted."

Naruto clenched his jaw, _Well my ungifted clones can slice through tree trunks._

Gaara seemingly shrugged then he raised the sword again. There was a small spike of chakra and Naruto faced the tree it was going for. Gaara swung the sword one last time and a deep gash appeared in the tree a few metres away. Naruto smirked inwardly.

Since Naruto had some time before training with Jiraiya today, he chose to visit Ichiraku. A few hundred clones later and Naruto was on his way, Gaara seemed to follow him for a few blocks, Naruto never cared to ask why, he too was hungry. Then the sand genin fell in stride with him.

"The villagers," he finally rasped, "Why do they look at you like that?"

Naruto chuckled, "They think I'm a monster."

Then silence reigned once more, until Naruto decided to find out something that's been nagging him.

"In your match, during the preliminaries, why'd you kill your opponent?"

Gaara stared at the taller boy he was walking beside, the question had been asked so innocently that Gaara believed he was speaking with a friend for a moment. No, he had no friends.

"Because… I am a monster."

"Hmm," replied Naruto, that was not what he wanted to hear. "What I meant was, how did it feel? Don't you feel any remorse? Or guilt? I read that happens a lot."

"No." he replied.

"Seriously!" sighed a tight jawed Naruto, "If you're gonna walk with me then at least talk with me."

Gaara looked at the pre-teen, wondering who would miss one boy. He wasn't that well liked, that was obvious. And from the way he dressed and that loud annoying voice, he knew Konohagakure might thank him for ridding them of their idiot. However, he found this Naruto amusing, amusing would have to do before he crushed them all, those eyes were similar to ones he received.

"Why feel guilt or remorse." Gaara replied after some contemplating. "He was a threat to my existence, I refuse to lose my existence."

Naruto and Gaara slid into the ramen stand. And ordered separately. Gaara ate the dish and immediately began ordering more. It was the most delicious thing he'd ever tasted. It tasted like a dream. Maybe he wouldn't kill them all, yes! This Teuchi and his daughter would be spared, they would be much happier in Suna surely. Gaara delved into his fourth bowl of ramen, the blond village idiot long forgotten from his mind and thoughts of how to keep the ramen stand owners safe throughout the invasion flooded his mind.

Naruto on the other hand was busy thinking over Gaara's words. It made no sense to him. If you survival was threatened then it should have been perfectly fine to retaliate in kind. The ninja books said that he was meant to kill, that was the job, but he hadn't found another reason to kill beyond the anger and revenge he had planned for the Kyuubi and the masked Uchiha. Killing just to save yourself felt foreign, justice! That's what he was fighting for.

-=-=-=-=-=- The night before the chuunin selection exam..

On the other side of the village, both of Naruto's sensei along with the hokage and Yamanaka Inoichi were behind privacy seals and discussing the psychological evaluation Naruto had received the day prior.

"It's as you anticipated, Hokage-sama." Inoichi said calmly. "Naruto has no attachments to the village whatsoever. I dare to say that even you are no longer within his good graces. When questioned about you, he referred to you formally and coldly as 'hokage-sama'.

"So he's no longer loyal." Muttered the kage, he hated it but now he might have to lock Naruto up. They could not lose the loyalty of their jinchuriki.

"I think you should listen and ask rather than deciphering incorrectly, Sarutobi." Danzo said calmly as if he had not just insulted the hokage.

Inoichi waited for a moment then continued, "The truth is, Naruto is completely loyal or rather, he views the village as…useful. He does not love the village nor does he hate it. Truth is I cannot discern why he is still here without entering his mind. I am sure it is not his personal ties."

The hokage was about to reply when Jiraiya interjected, "Yes, I've noticed it as well. He is working towards something; he's not simply trying to become a chuunin. If I didn't know any better I'd say I was looking at a mini-Orochimaru."

The hokage's worry increased. This was a reason why he'd never allowed Naruto to be trained from an early age like everyone had insisted he should. He knew that Naruto would come to be an enemy to the village and eventually have to be neutralized as a threat.

"I highly doubt he's anything like your former teammate," interjected Inoichi, he had noticed the positive impact the boy had on his daughter's ninja career, he felt that was a good thing. "But whatever his true reason for gaining strength, it's not just for the chuunin finals. I dare say it is more important to him than his own life, let alone the village."

"He has extensive knowledge on shinobi tactics, history and geography. He is collecting a lot of information. Some parts of his knowledge in psychology were revealed when he attempted to deceive me with great skill."

"He knows who his parents are," continued the jounin. "or at least thinks he does. May I know who his parents were, hokage-sama, it might help explain his results."

"Please continue, Inoichi." The hokage said, his expression pensive and giving no indication that he heard the young interrogator's request.

Inoichi got the hint and went on to explain how Naruto held a certain amount of contempt for his father. He explained the blonde's inferiority complex, according to the Yamanaka head, Uzumaki Naruto believed himself weaker than he truly was. Inochi, remembering his daughter, finished off by explaining quite clearly that Naruto held no compassion for the villagers, he neither hated them or loved them.

"He views the villagers as non-factors but I can honestly tell you that he wouldn't betray the village, simply because of how he was treated."

Once the clan head was gone, Sarutobi, assured of Naruto's loyalty, turned to the blonde's teachers for more assessments.

Danzo began without much emotion, but the hokage could sense the hidden pride, "I have successfully increased his chakra capacity to a little bit higher than yours."

Sarutobi eyes visibly widened, Naruto's chakra before had been monstrous enough for his age but to be able to increase it by that much in just a four weeks was insane.

"He was using clones," explained Danzo. "I am also absolutely sure that he has no idea of the chakra requirements for the clones he makes and thus believes his chakra level to be genin going on chuunin levels."

Both Jiraiya and the Sandaime found this peculiar as Naruto had great sensory prowess. Danzo paid them no mind.

"He can also split a rock with his wind natured chakra and has no aptitude for genjutsu, despite his chuunin level control. I have helped him learn a few genjutsu and he can dispel some. He has also taken a great interest in kenjutsu and I have given him access to my finest ninja-to and a wind style tanto. That is all."

Danzo had deliberately downplayed the boy's ninjutsu and futon skills because he wanted to keep the boy's skills a mystery. Sarutobi's eyes were now returning to normal but Jiraiya gave no visible reaction, he had no idea why Danzo omitted some things but shrugged it off as of no consequence.

"I taught him the **Rasengan** and he had the justu mastered in three days, the summoning took him one try."

Danzo smiled eerily but bit back some jealousy, he had encountered the steps of the **Rasengan **a few months after its creation and now, more than fifteen years later, he was still stuck on the second step. The third was elusive and he did not understand why it was so difficult to master, but hearing the news brought new confidence to him. If a genin could master the jutsu then why couldn't he?

Jiraiya chuckled at the stupefied expression on his sensei's face, "As for taijutsu, he was a depressing sight and I'm sure any taijutsu he learns would eventually be bastardized and morphed into something unrecognizable. He has amazing reflexes and that's what I worked on. He's got enough speed to match any chuunin now and his reflexes alone can keep up with any jounin level ninja."

The hokage sent him a questioning look to make sure he wasn't exaggerating. Naruto's speed had been sub-par to academy students before. The reflexes, he'd noticed himself during the preliminaries.

Danzo raised an eyebrow but Jiraiya smiled and laughed a little, "That's his speed without the gravity seal, I have no idea what would happen if his resistance seal were to be released. And like I said, his reflexes are amazing, he could fight toe to toe with ninjas twice as fast as he is."

Both men leveled him with a curious gaze after this, one would assume he was merely praising his godson subjectively.

Danzo knew the boy was skilled but that kind of speed did not come easily, he had planned on giving Naruto an advantage simply with ninjutsu and that peculiar sensory ability of his, taijutsu was out of the question because the boy had no talent for it at all.

"How is that possible, even with a simple gravity seal he should have taken weeks to reach that speed and you're telling me he did it with that and a resistance one active?" asked the hokage.

"Yeah, pretty much," Jiraiya shrugged, "He used chakra to maintain mobility in a level then simply began decreasing the amount of chakra he would need little by little. Of course he doesn't get the full speed of the level but I count this as progress."

Then Jiraiya said something that made less sense then Naruto mastering the **Rasengan **or becoming five times faster in less than a month.

"He's a fuinjutsu genius." Said the Sannin.

Neither of the man could see how that was possible. Fuinjutsu, the sealing arts were nothing like kenjutsu, ninjutsu, genjutsu or taijutsu. You could not simply be born with a talent for it, it required knowledge, a lot of knowledge. Some might say useless knowledge. Seals used a language that took years of practice and experience to understand.

_*flashback*_

_Naruto was panting on the ground after another beating, Jiraiya had gone off to get some lunch. The man had tried healing him first but Naruto refused, he wanted to recover on his own, the pain was reinforcement enough. _

_Last night, one of his clones had finally come across the gravity seal's theory, he still hadn't seen any practical seal designs. The gravity seal was just that, gravity. It made the person's gravity increase, basically you felt heavier than normal. Your limbs took more effort to move and you felt heavier than usual, but you still weighed the same. He had experienced all these symptoms but there was an extra one that he attributed to lack of experience by the author: he felt that everything around him gained increased gravity as well. Calm air felt like wind that intentionally restricted his movement. The environment was working against him._

_So Naruto channeled chakra into the seal and instantly saw the complicated markings appear, remarkable that such a thing could change so much. _

_He stared at it for a while and then Naruto began to see the patterns, he saw the way each arc or corner meant something. This wasn't complicated, it was a well fitted puzzle, he could clearly see a section that dealt solely with decreasing and increasing the level. Another part was for tying the seal to his chakra and allowing him control, there was also a master override. The whole thing was surrounded by a protective ring, meant to keep the seal from simply being cut of his skin. So Naruto bit his thumb to use his blood as ink and immediately got to work._

_Once Jiraiya brought dinner and they ate, they returned back to sparring. And a few minutes in, Jiraiya had to increase his speed to keep up with the blond, it felt like Naruto was getting faster with each strike…that was unlikely._

_Jiraiya chuckled to cover up his surprise, "Seems like you've gotten used to that level. Let's increase it again."_

_The boy smiled as Jiraiya tried to remain stoic while trying to increase the level, it looked like it was completely deactivated._

"_Like my handiwork?" Naruto asked smugly._

"_Y—you did this?" the Sannin asked, he could not hide his surprise now. "How?"_

"_Well I kinda got bored reading about seals so I decided to see one. After that it just felt like I could read it, it makes sense…sort of."_

_Jiraiya looked at him like he'd grown an extra head for a full minute, completely forgetting their sparring session. He had gotten the kid his seventh intermediate book, making sure to remove the pages on resistance seals. It was all theory, because he knew Naruto had the potential to become a master instead of just learning simple tricks like making paper bombs. _

_But now, he was sure he'd just found the first ever fuinjutsu genius. So for the remainder of the day he had Naruto guess the type of seals he drew. The blond got them right every time but then he got the first road block when he asked him to redraw a paper bomb. Jiraiya thought he'd make it easier for the kid by letting him copy and it was safe to say that Naruto's calligraphy was worse than his father's. _

_The kid was a myriad of contradictory skills, reflexes without the speed or the proper taijutsu to back it up and being able to 'read' seals but not having the calligraphy to match it. Well now they could fix that._

_Jiraiya chose the second to last week to have the blond look at a specific seal, he left the tri-pronged kunai that it came with at home and found the kid furrowing his eyebrows in frustration for the first time. He had to force the kid to make a clone and have it study the seal, instead of wasting his entire day. Naruto seemed to have something against being more laid back._

_*flashback end*_

"Well?" asked Danzo, unfiltered curiosity gracing his features and voice.

"Did he decipher it?" added the hokage, at the edge of his seat as well.

Jiraiya laughed some more, the older men were too interested to be irritated.

"He says the seal has a bit of the creator's genetic signature integrated into it, impossible to replicate." Jiraiya took a dramatic pause. "He gave me back the seal, useless he called it, apparently only a…close relative could ever use the jutsu."

There was silence for a while, each of them knew what the implications were. Many ninja had been tasked with collecting and studying the three pronged kunai's seal, even Jiraiya had given up trying to understand it. Now they had a ninja who could both understand and use the **Hirashin no Jutsu.**

"I thought he was against learning his father's justu?" asked the Sandaime.

Jiraiya nodded, "Only reason I was able to trick him with the **Rasengan **was that he seems to know nothing about his father but he will most definitely suspect something with that jutsu."

The men discussed how to deal with Orochimaru, each of them could beat the Sannin. That was how they concluded that. The sand demon was still a problem. As for Naruto, he was destined to become the second coming of the Yellow Flash after the exams, his views on the matter were nullified.

-=-=-=-=-=-Meanwhile

Hyuuga Neji was content with himself. He had prepared well enough, he hoped the clanless orphan would survive the Uchiha, then he would crush his dreams! But the failure was destined to lose and nothing was going to change that.

Asa had tripled her reserves, weeks and weeks of chakra building exercises had paid off and she was undeniably the strongest member of her team right now.

Gaara had taken up a sword, a katana. After his interaction with the blond he realized that he had missed his favourite pastime, after killing people. He didn't need to, he had never been touched before, he would never learn the joys of combat but doing this kept Mother quiet and he honestly liked thinking for himself. So he went through the katas, he never slept so his skills with a sword were jounin level at least, practicing all night did that.

Temari was content with her skills as well, she was currently watching her brother move around, elegantly and more than usual. It was beautiful.

At the Aburame training grounds, Shino jumped back and watched his handiwork. He might have been smirking but no one would have known.

"Well done," Asura said. The two Aburame watched Asura's clone crumble into earth. "Your timing for the **Earth decapitation **technique was a little off though. Make sure you use it effectively next time."

"Hai."was the quiet reply.

Rock Lee was simply stretching. His sensei had forced him into doing just that today and made him promise to have a long night sleep. He did not feel entirely ready but he would face whatever came head on.

Nara Shikamaru on the other hand was annoyed, he had been forced into training by his father at the start of the second week. No explanation was given but he assumed that it was something rather important. He had missed out on cloud watching too much, so tonight, he lay on the roof and watched the cloudless sky. Why was everyone so gung-ho about becoming exceptional.

Ino was very unhappy, a few days ago she'd been on great terms with Naruto and had been about to confess to him, when Sakura found them hanging out and immediately teased her about being on a date with the dead last. She had not thought about it, it seemed she was not completely over Sasuke because she instantly decided to deny ever being near Naruto.

_No way! He just started following me out of nowhere, I like Sasuke-kun!_

Those were her harsh words, Naruto just stood there smiling in silence as she bickered with Sakura over who would get Sasuke in the end. Then Sakura left and Naruto laughed.

_Well wasn't that fun?_

He said that so lightheartedly, like he didn't care. Ino could not confess to him after that and to make things worse, she started seeing one of his clones around town with Hinata, she was pretty jealous. When she questioned him about it, he replied: _What makes you think I'm not a clone either? _So the blond Yamanaka girl spent every second she could spare winning over Naruto, she was going to make him fall in love first.

Hinata brushed her lavender hair out of her eyes, a smirk riddled on her sweaty face. She'd been taking lessons for attracting a husband, a noble husband, was what her father emphasized on, she knew he meant anyone but Naruto and knew he would hate her and probably remove her from her status even faster. But when she met Naruto in town, she just couldn't help but talk to him using words that had receding number of stutters, but then she saw him with Ino some times. He laughed: _He's just a clone. _That didn't put her mind at ease, from his smaller reserves she could tell that he too was a clone and she could see the way the Yamanaka twirled her hair, giggled and batted her eye lashes, those were seduction techniques. So Hyuuga Hinata trained her eye on her four opponents for the night and resolved to take out her anger on them. For after the exams, Naruto would have her undivided attention and hopefully so would she.

"Your Sharingan can only predict so much," Kakashi barked, he'd forced the youngest Uchiha to fully develop his dojutsu. "Lee can still get passed your defenses if he moves fast enough, we're leaving no room for error."

What neither Sasuke nor Lee knew was that their senseis had made a bet. If Sasuke won, Gai would stop wearing spandex and shouting about youth. If Lee won, Kakashi would take of his mask and reveal his face. That's why Kakashi had worked on Sasuke's speed to match whatever weight training Lee had gone through. Gai on the other hand was too youthful to voice his own thoughts on Lee's impending fight with Sasuke because he believed that Neji should have some support, he resolved to stay objective.

So Sasuke trudged on, he knew he wanted to completely humiliate Lee, just like he'd been humiliated. He was insecure, because Lee had not even tried against him. This time would be different.

Our blond protagonist looked around for a while then he sat in the centre of a room. On the comfortable carpet. He was about to try meditating. Jiraiya assured him he just needed to overcome some turmoil inside of him in order to master the spiraling ball of chakra, the Ero-sennin still refused to tell him the name. Being in this room had been the first step, leading him to briefly remember why he was here.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-A few hours ago

Naruto was busy mastering his version of the **Kawarimi no Jutsu**, hundreds of his clones were periodically doing it along with him at other locations. Both his sensei had given him the day off and he had wanted to spend it annoying Ino but things had been unusual since she'd tried to confess to him, truth was he was glad she hadn't. What kind of person completely switches devotions like that? Even he still felt a familiar tingle every time he saw Sakura, but then she opened her mouth, he decided it wasn't worth it. _He's so weak? _Were the first of many words.

_She thinks just because she read a couple of books it makes her strong? And then Ino just had to join in. Must be a girl thing._

Naruto clenched his jaw, he liked not to dwell on his feelings for Ino or even the shy and weird dark haired girl from the academy that seemed to talk more and more with him. For a while, with the flushed face and fainting, he'd assumed that she had a crush on him. But now he knew otherwise, she had just been shy, she was practically royalty anyway and he was a peasant. Hinata more interesting when she didn't stutter as much, he had contemplated visiting her as well but remembered the face of an enraged Hyuuga Hiashi striking several of his clones weeks ago.

No, he tried some taichi, it was meant to calm him down enough to master the chakra ball. Then two chakra signatures approaching made him stop. He wouldn't have bothered if they weren't ninja sized.

Two figures appeared on the training ground, one had dark brown hair and black eyes, he easily towered over them and his chuunin vest was tattered and aged. His reserves were chuunin sized and Naruto tensed slightly when the man trained his eyes on him, there was recognition then his face became impassive in seconds. The other had black hair and was Naruto's height and age. Black hair and green eyes and Naruto recognized the plump face that followed the other figure. His reserves were half the man's, Takeshi Kataru. He too was oddly enough wearing a chuunin vest as well.

"Naruto? Uzumaki Naruto?" exclaimed Kataru.

"A friend of yours, Kataru?" asked the older man, his gaze had never left Naruto's.

"Something like that, Kaien-taicho. We graduated together."

"How are you already a chuunin?" asked Naruto, he had not seen any other genin team apart from the ones competing.

Kataru then went on to explain how the failing genin had been streamlined into a boot camp then forced to take a chuunin exam of their own where only ten out of twenty one had been cleared for active duty.

Naruto chuckled, "That's one way to skip D-ranks."

Kataru agreed, "You know, I saw your match against Kiba, pretty amazing stuff for someone who used to be deadlast huh?"

Naruto scratched the back of his head with his trademark goofy smile and after a while, Kaien requested a word in private with him and when Kataru left, the man challenged him to a spar. Naruto saw no ill intent and agreed.

They started off innocently enough, some witty banter coupled in with traded blows. Naruto was shocked at the difference in their strength, Kaien was slower than him only when all the six levels of the gravity seal were deactivated and even then, he couldn't land a significant blow.

Naruto made the mistake of using **Shunshin no Jutsu. **He still had to wait before using the next but Kaien was relentless and could use a **Shunshin **within a **Shunshin. **Naruto would anticipate where his **Shunshin **would end and once the man saw this, he would seemingly use another one and change directions.Naruto was outmatched and wondering just how much he had to train to get closer to his goal. Was this the difference between chuunin and genin? What about between jounin and chuunin? S-rank ninjas and A-rank ones? How much did he have to improve?

"Not bad, kid." Said Kaien as he watched Naruto wallow in self-pity. "Really, Naruto, I think you're more than qualified to become a chuunin."

"What are you talking about?" Naruto said quietly. "I couldn't even push you to get serious. If you're the level I'm aiming to become then I'm not ready for anything if I can't even do that."

"Oh c'mon, you were holding back as much as I was." Said Kaien. "Your mother would be proud."

Naruto clenched his jaw, knowing what was next. Like Jiraiya he was probably going to preach about how great his parents were. "You knew my parents?"

Kaien chuckled, "No, just your mother. I was sort of her punching bag in the academy years. Man I was so pathetic." Kaien developed a faraway look in his eye. "I even called my genin brother to make her stop, she beat him up too. We lost touch but from that day onwards I trained my ass off, safe to say I haven't been beaten up by a girl since I was a kid."

Naruto smiled and Kaien began to walk away.

"My only advice to you is train and gain some experience, sometimes skill and training can't beat experience" he said without turning around. "Don't beat yourself up over it, I am a jounin after all. Your just need to attack more viciously, you seem a bit timid or hesitant."

And just like that, the man was gone. Naruto walked to the edge of the village, there was a giant gate surrounding a mansion he'd been avoiding. The Namikaze estate. This would have been his home. This was definitely the source of his turmoil. He smeared his blood thumb on the sealed gates and it instantly gave him access. The massive and dusty mansion seemed to lead him to his family portrait in the living room. Both his parents and his unborn self, as a simple bump on his mother's stomach brought Naruto to tears. He cried for a while then found the comfortable carpet.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-Present

Naruto began to meditate, his clones had learnt it for him. He was in that position for a while before he was forced to opened his eyes at the sound of footsteos. He found himself in a dimly lit space with a clone staring at him. But except the clone had red eyes rather than blue, what should have been a smile was a smirk and when he spoke it was in that calm voice he tried to get away from.

"Let's skip the whole portion of this tour where you ask me who I am and then don't believe me. Just practice your ball of chakra and keep suppressing your hate."

"No need," Naruto said. "I just remembered now. You are the angry side of me, but somehow you can use the spiraling ball."

Every time Naruto went to bed, he wound up here. He never remembered the previous encounter with his 'angry' half and so they fought every time they met until Naruto saw him do the jutsu. His 'dark' side would promise him help only if he stopped 'pretending' and showed the village his 'true' self. Naruto would then deny said offer and practice the ball of chakra while this 'dark' side taunted him by doing it effortlessly.

_Just kill one of them. _It had once said. _Then you'll be able to do the jutsu._

Of course this became a vicious cycle because every time Naruto came here, he wouldn't remember the previous encounter. 'Dark' Naruto tried different persuasion methods but he always declined, each time with more difficulty. So when he woke up, for that moment of grogginess, 'dark' Naruto was helping him form the justu.

"So you are the side that embodies my anger." Naruto said, "You've been fighting me."

'Dark' Naruto laughed, "Finally figured it out. Every time you do your little jaw clenching thing and bury your anger, you make me stronger and the stronger I get, the weaker your little happy mask gets."

Naruto looked at the dark walls, questioning where the light was coming from, "There is no need for that, my mask has been slipping to frequently for it to be useful anymore."

"What are you saying?" asked 'dark' Naruto.

Naruto faced his hidden anger, he wonder what would have happened if he let it fester for a few more years. "I'm saying…I want my anger back."

And as if on cue, 'dark' Naruto began to disperse in a wonderful glow of light. Naruto watched the light enter his body impassively, noting that it was nothing like he'd expected.

Opening his eyes in the mansion, Uzumaki Naruto did not feel any angrier. He did not feel any difference. His eyes, however, held a dark tint to them. So small that it was negligible if you weren't looking for it but if you did manage to find the change, you'd see an unwavering resolve and confidence. This new Uzumaki Naruto could kill, but then the tint disappeared and left no evidence of it ever existing.

He crossed his fingers in a seal and an **Uzumaki Kage Bunshin **appeared, then he formed his 'spiralling ball jutsu' as he felt it needed a name and drove it into the clone's abdomen. As expected, the ball crushed bone and ripped through flesh all at once, splattering blood on the face of the user and leaving behind a disfigured and bloody hole in the body of the victim. The clone dispelled a few seconds after it 'died' but the blood remained.

_It was dusty anyways. _Thought our blond as he looked for the cleaning supplies and wiped the blood off his face.


End file.
